Introducing a Market to the United Kingdom's National Health Service

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS), created in 1948, is a publicly financed system that provides universal access to health care within a moderate and fixed budget. Reforms introduced in 1991 by the government led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sought to contain costs, maintain equity, and at the same time make the allocation of resources more efficient by introducing some features of a market, constrained by the overall budget and the principle of universal access. These reforms created what is known as an “internal market” in health care, in which providers are permitted a degree of competition. Publicly . . .