This paper studies the interaction between public and private health care provision in a National Health Service (NHS), with free public care and costly private care. The health authority decides whether or not to allow private provision and sets the public sector remuneration. The physicians...

In many public healthcare systems treatments are rationed by waiting time. We examine the optimal allocation of a fixed supply of a given treatment between different groups of patients. Even in the absence of any distributional aims, welfare is increased by third degree waiting time...

This paper develops a model of the supply of elective treatments within a duopolistic market structure where patients can be referred to the hospital with the lowest waiting times. We investigate the effect of a higher degree of substitutability among the two hospitals on equilibrium supply,...

Waiting times for specialist consultation and non-emergency surgery are often considered an equitable rationing mechanism in the public healthcare sector, because access to care is not based on socioeconomic status. This study tests empirically this claim using data from the Survey of Health,...

Waiting times are commonly used as a rationing device in health care and the public sector. We develop a stylised model, which predicts the dynamics of waiting times and waiting lists over time as a function of differing demand and supply parameters. We show that a path with decreasing waiting...

Policy-makers often claim that enhancing patient choice induces more competition among hospitals and may therefore reduce waiting times. This paper tests this claim using 120 English NHS hospitals over the period 1999-2001. Several proxies for the degree of choice (or competition) are...

Rationing by waiting time is commonly used in health care systems with zero or low money prices. Some systems prioritise particular types of patient and offer them lower waiting times. We investigate whether prioritisation is welfare improving when the benefit from treatment is the sum of two...