Consensus conferences are an increasingly accepted means of synthesising available information and of producing a widely agreed view of the value of medical techniques and advances. In the United Kingdom the King's Fund initiated their use, and developed them beyond their original purely professional focus by holding meetings in public, ...
Medical technology, defined broadly to include drugs, procedures and equipment used singly or in combination, has been of enormous benefit in improving the quality of health care. It has, however, raised many issues about how society can afford to pay for these often expensive developments and about associated ethical problems ...
The second edition of 'The Nation's Health' is an extensively revised and updated assessment of trends in health status and public health policy and practice over the last decade. Its wide-ranging scientific analysis forms the basis for developing 17 health priorities and a clearly defined strategy for improving health over ...
This report is an in-depth, comparative study of the UK plans and US experience of competition in the supply of hospital services. It shows how both competition and regulation policies have been used to contain escalating costs in the US. American experience raises concerns about the impact of competition on ...
The report attempts to review the main issues surrounding the funding and management of units providing dialysis services to people suffering from end-stage renal failure in the UK for the benefit of health service managers, renal physicians and other staff. The objective is to review the experience and information currently ...
The paper summarises recent literature giving an economic perspective on acute hospitals. The issues discussed include: the optimal size of a hospital; the role of the hospital in relation to other suppliers; cost containment and productivity; and the scope for cost reduction.
This report reviews the performance of health services in Sweden, Holland, West Germany, Canada and USA. The main aim has been to identify the countries' studies, to draw parallels with the UK, and to establish the lessons, if any, from abroad. Chapter one traces the origins of the Prime Minister's ...
This is a report on the first year of the Organisational Audit project. It describes the project set up by the Quality Improvement Programme to test the applicability of an 'accreditation' type approach to the UK health system.
The four essays in this volume offer some insights into the following issues: clinical directors, from the view point of a clinician and a manager; USA experience of physician as managers in hospitals and the implementation of such a system; an assessment of the options for the NHS with doctors ...
This report summarises the literature on geographical variations in hospital admission rates in the UK and internationally. It is restricted to studies of inpatient admissions. It concludes that the examination of the variations provides invaluable insights into the nature and extent of medical uncertainty, and that this information is essential ...