In 2008 the NHS celebrates its 60th birthday. This briefing looks at key health care issues over the last 60 years and forward to its 120th birthday. [Introduction]
This report brings together the findings and conclusions from three strands of research that addressed different aspects of the main research topic, which is the identification of successful strategies for sustaining reductions in waiting times. They are: identifying successful strategies for sustaining reductions in waiting times; the impact of waiting ...
'Free choice' - allowing patients being referred for non-urgent treatment to choose a hospital anywhere in England - begins in the NHS in England in April 2008. It is another milestone in a policy that aims, among other things, to use consumer pressure to improve the quality of hospital services ...
Attempts to give more choice to users of public sector services has been a major theme of the Labour government's public sector modernisation programme. Policies have been developed in health care, education and social housing that aim to give users a greater choice of publicly or privately owned providers, and ...
The NHS has moved from an overall net deficit to a net surplus within a year, according to the figures released by the government in June 2007 (Department of Health 2007), reversing a three year trend towards increasingly large gross deficits. The government argues that these latest figures show that ...
Practice-based commissioning (PBC) is a policy intended to give more decision-making power over NHS resources to general practitioners (GPs), and allow them to design and deliver completely new services or commission others to do so. It has a number of underlying policy objectives including delivering more cost effective and convenient ...
Local accountability has been a significant policy issue within the NHS generally. However, primary care trusts are in the main accountable to the centre and there have been calls to review this. This paper discusses a range of options for reforming the relationships between PCTs and their public. It explores ...
The War on Waiting for Hospital Treatment (Harrison and Appleby 2005) examined the government's record on reducing the number of people on waiting lists for elective care in England, and the time they had to wait. This briefing provides an update on that analysis. The waiting times targets currently in ...