Overview - 2010/11 was the first full financial year of a Coalition government committed to meeting the so-called “Nicholson challenge†of making £20bn efficiency savings in projected NHS expenditure by 2015. Securing improvements in NHS productivity is seen as a key element in...

Expenditure on long term care is expected to rise, driven by an ageing population. Coordination between health and long term care is increasingly a priority for policymakers. Elderly individuals living at home who suffer trauma, such as hip fracture or stroke, generally require immediate acute...

Patients requiring specialised care are usually treated by specialist teams with particular expertise and equipment. Concentrating services in this way should be cost-effective but there is concern that national tariffs might fail to fully reflect the true costs associated with treating patients...

The fundamental aim of public services is to improve the quality of life of citizens. The main objective of this study was to investigate the influence of public service organisations (PSOs) on aspects of quality of life (broadly measured) of citizens at a local level. We assembled a rich...

We analyse incentives for collusive behaviour when heterogeneous providers are faced with regulated prices under two forms of yardstick competition, namely discriminatory and uniform schemes. Providers are heterogeneous in the degree to which their interests correspond to those of the regulator,...

There is limited research evidence on foundation trusts (FTs) and much of the available material is in the form of commentary or the regular reports from Monitor. Comparative research is made difficult through lack of a counter-factual and robust methods are required to overcome bias. Summary...