Planning, Markets and Hospitals

The period covered includes: services prior to 1948; wartime hospital policy; the successes and failures of the mixed economy of health care in the inter-war period; the national hospital plan of 1962 and ultimately the market based reforms of 1991 and the changes since.This book makes a fresh contribution to enduring debates about planning and regulation of health care, about the governance of welfare services and about the appropriate role for voluntary, commercial and charitable provision of services. It reinterprets previous histories of hospital policy and questions whether current policies will reconcile competing goals of equity and choice.Improving access to hospital services has been a goal of public policy for over 70 years, the means of which have changed over that period. Drawing on original research this study presents a systematic approach to the challenge.Drawing substantially on original research,Planning, Markets and Hospitalsrepresents a systematic attempt to access the strengths and weaknesses of different forms of planning and coordination of hospital development. Throughout, attention is given to key themes of regulation and governance, of the appropriate balance between planning and markets, and the question of the ways governments have sought to regulate and extend access to health care. It reinterprets previous histories of UK hospital policy and questions whether current policies will reconcile competing goals of equity and choice.The book discusses the successes and failures of the mixed economy of health care in the inter-war period, including a consideration of the nature of public-private partnerships.