Hospital bed‐blocking occurs when hospital patients are ready to be discharged to a nursing home, but no place is available, so that hospital care acts as a more costly substitute for long‐term care. We investigate the extent to which greater supply of nursing home beds or lower prices can...

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...

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...

Discounting costs and health benefits in cost-effectiveness analysis has been the subject of recent debate – some authors suggesting a common rate for both and others suggesting a lower rate for health. We show how these views turn on key judgments of fact and value: on whether the social...

Many health-care systems allocate funding according to measures of need. The utilisation approach for measuring need rests on the assumptions that use of health care is determined by demand and supply and that need is an important element of demand. By estimating utilisation models which allow...

We examine the effects of an intervention to provide easier access to pharmacists for patients with minor ailments. The intervention allowed pharmacists to prescribe and dispense medicines currently limited to general practitioners (GPs) without patients losing their right to free prescriptions....