Abstract
This chapter defines the elements of cost which health service markets in the public sector may incur, and analyses the three main ‘market reforms’ to the English NHS—the Conservatives’ original internal market; New Labour’s ‘new market’; and the Health and Social Care Act of 2012—in terms of the key costs they have incurred. At a conservative estimate, direct costs have created an extra £4.5 billion in the annual, recurrent, costs of the market and ‘one-off’, or start-up, costs of each reform of many billions. Wider, indirect costs cannot be quantified but are discussed and exemplified. Costs should be set against benefit, and the paucity of evidence for benefit from market reform is notable. The most significant study suggesting benefit from market choice under New Labour is critiqued.
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Paton, C. (2016). The Cost of the Market: The Price of Ideology. In: The Politics of Health Policy Reform in the UK. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47343-1_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47343-1_9
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