Free to choose?

Marty Gaynor, Carol Propper, Stephan Seiler, 13 January 2013

Greater choice and competition in healthcare is a popular reform model. This column discusses recent research suggesting that once restrictions on choice in the UK’s NHS were lifted, patients receiving cardiac surgery became more responsive to the quality of their care. This saved lives and gave hospitals a greater incentive to improve quality.

A central plank of the NHS reforms implemented by the UK Labour government of the 2000s was the introduction of patient choice. For the first time in the history of the NHS it was mandated that patients should have a say in the choice of hospital when being referred for an elective treatment.

Topics: Health economics
Tags: health, NHS, patient choice

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Can pay regulation kill? Evidence from English hospital trusts

Carol Propper, John Van Reenen, 30 January 2008

Centrally determined pay for public sector workers like NHS nurses acts as a maximum wage in some labour markets. Here is a summary of a new study arguing that the resulting hiring difficulties are causing patient deaths.

Economists have long warned of the unintended consequences of labour market regulation (Botero et al. 2004). Some things that seem fair – like paying people the same wage for doing the same job regardless of where they work – may turn out to be foul in practice.