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It’s weird that the government don’t have any, you know, facts and figures about the kinds of reforms it’s trying to introduce now. You know, the sorts there must be loads of, to show how much better it would be. The sort you’d want before undertaking a thorough restructuring of the whole system.
Surely there must be some sort of evidence from the last time an internal market was introduced (in an limited form) in 1991. Surely…
Oh wait! There is! Popper, Burgess & Gossage’s 2003 paper: Competition and Quality: Evidence from the NHS Internal Market 1991-1999.
Brilliant! This should put my mind at ease…
“We find the impact of competition is to reduce quality. Hospitals… in more competitive areas have higher death rates.”
…. Oh. Never mind, sure there’s some good news later…
“Death rates were higher in competitive areas in most years between 1992 and 1999.”
Really? But still, everyone’s living longer anyway, right?
“[T]he negative impact of competition in the more competitive areas more than offsets the positive impact of technological change.”
Oh poo. Please, please, please #savethenhs…
Nathaniel Tapley 
9 comments
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March 8, 2012 at 3:35 pm
NMac
Isn’t this why these nasty politicians don’t want us know the facts and figures. Why on earth do we put up with them?
March 8, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Nathaniel Tapley
I honestly couldn’t say why we put up with them. Apart from the fact that they’ve designed a system that makes it very difficult to get rid of them.
March 8, 2012 at 3:54 pm
NMac
Without someone planting dynamite under Parliament, but only while occupants are in residence.
March 8, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Gnstr
Brilliant ! | Genius ! Ah, yes, ah yup. It seems i now have the armour, just the tool, to, errr, clobber those heady bods who want to get rid of our age’s legacy, the greatest British Institution.
March 8, 2012 at 8:06 pm
Ex NHS GP
The Tories and Lib Dems are screwing up the NHS to meet ideological delusions that private is better, that splitting up one service into many different parts is ‘efficient’, that having 5 layers of bureacracy instead of 3 is ‘efficient’, that destroying a National service and instituting local chaos must be good for their friends in the private sector (screw the patients) and they wish to serve only one term because when the resulting failure of a well loved institution occurs then the electorate, if it has any sense, will send them back to their PR agencies.
March 12, 2012 at 6:38 pm
francesca cunningam
Maybe all in despair should move to Scotland and vote for independance. At least here the nhs is truly valued and protected and no, not through so called susbidies ,see mcrone report nd more recently hmrc financial report re scotland and its contributions. I truly feel sorry for all that were hoodwinked by Cameron and co. Divide and conquer tatics as per ususal by tories
March 12, 2012 at 6:52 pm
Nathaniel Tapley
Thanks, Francesca. It may well come to that.
March 13, 2012 at 6:36 pm
Angharad Beurle-Williams
A BUPA advert? Really?! I’m going to assume it’s an ironic comment….
March 14, 2012 at 11:32 pm
Nathaniel Tapley
Wow. WordPress at its best…