Activity-based funding involves remunerating healthcare providers a fixed price per patient in each payment category. However, no categorisation system can account perfectly for differences in patient complexity. Differences may be systematic if providers routinely attract high-risk patients or...

We investigate differences in patients’ length of stay between National Health Service (NHS) public hospitals, public treatment centres and private treatment centres that provide elective (non-emergency) hip replacement to publicly-funded patients. We find that private treatment centres and...

The English government has encouraged private providers – known as Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTCs) – to treat publicly funded (NHS) patients. Providers are paid a fixed price per patient treated, adjusted to reflect geographical differences in input costs. But there may be other...