The paper summarises recent literature giving an economic perspective on acute hospitals. The issues discussed include: the optimal size of a hospital; the role of the hospital in relation to other suppliers; cost containment and productivity; and the scope for cost reduction.
This report reviews the performance of health services in Sweden, Holland, West Germany, Canada and USA. The main aim has been to identify the countries' studies, to draw parallels with the UK, and to establish the lessons, if any, from abroad. Chapter one traces the origins of the Prime Minister's ...
This study describes the various approaches adopted by some DHAs in separating responsibility for purchasing and providing services. The approach finding most favour involves separating the purchaser and provider functions below the DGM (District General Manager) level. The strength of this approach is in enabling the purchaser and provider functions ...
The 'keepers' mentioned in the title of this book are workers in prisons, long-stay hospitals, homes for mentally retarded people and other total institutions. Their feelings about their work and about the institutions are presented here in twelve monologues selected from more than 60 interviews with workers in 27 different ...
The Living Options In Practice project aims to help service planners and providers in statutory and voluntary agencies build effective and comprehensive services to meet the needs of people with severe physical and sensory disabilities. It has developed an outline of the elements that should be encompassed within a comprehensive ...
This is a report of the initiative in Islington which was part of a larger project to test out ideas which came from a number of sources. It was concerned with looking at how far small-scale approaches to the management and delivery of services could improve the quality of primary ...
This document is a report on a workshop held at the King's Fund. Its aim was to highlight the issue of contracts with small groups of black professional workers in the field of mental health. The participants exchanged what was currently known about contracts, looked at some of the issues ...
The care given to a random sample of adults who died in 1987 is described retrospectively by relatives and others who had known them. Most praised, or were satisfied with, the care given by general practitioners but both the statistics and the quotations reveal some disconcerting inadequacies in this care, ...