In a number of countries where health care is publicly funded, policies to introduce greater patient choice are being implemented. In most cases patient choice is seen as an instrument to reduce waiting times for elective (non-emergency) hospital services. An important issue is whether...

Long waiting times for inpatient treatment in the UK National Health Service have long been a source of great popular and political concern, and therefore a target for policy initiatives. One such is the London Patient Choice Project, under which patients at risk of breaching inpatient waiting...

This paper considers methods to measure output and productivity in the delivery of health services, with an application to the NHS hospital sector. It first develops a theoretical framework for measuring quality adjusted outputs and then considers how this might be implemented given available...

The Centre for Health Economics and National Institute of Economic and Social Research have recently completed a project funded by the Department of Health to improve measurement of the productivity of the NHS. The researchers have suggested better ways of measuring both outputs and inputs to...