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Space, place and (waiting) time: reflections on health policy and politics

Health systems have repeatedly addressed concerns about efficiency and equity by employing trans-national comparisons to draw out the strengths and weaknesses of specific policy initiatives. This paper demonstrates the potential for explicit historical analysis of waiting times for hospital treatmen...

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Autor principal: Sheard, Sally
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7614951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29457577
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1744133117000366
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author Sheard, Sally
author_facet Sheard, Sally
author_sort Sheard, Sally
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description Health systems have repeatedly addressed concerns about efficiency and equity by employing trans-national comparisons to draw out the strengths and weaknesses of specific policy initiatives. This paper demonstrates the potential for explicit historical analysis of waiting times for hospital treatment to add value to spatial comparative methodologies. Waiting times and the size of the lists of waiting patients have become key operational indicators. In the United Kingdom, as National Health Service (NHS) financial pressures intensified from the 1970s, waiting times have become a topic for regular public and political debate. Various explanations for waiting times include the following: hospital consultants manipulate NHS waiting lists to maintain their private practice; there is under-investment in the NHS; and available (and adequate) resources are being used inefficiently. Other countries have also experienced ongoing tensions between the public and private delivery of universal health care in which national and trans-national comparisons of waiting times have been regularly used. The paper discusses the development of key UK policies, and provides a limited Canadian comparative perspective, to explore wider issues, including whether ‘waiting crises’ were consciously used by policymakers, especially those brought into government to implement new economic and managerial strategies, to diminish the autonomy and authority of the medical professional in the hospital environment.
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spelling pubmed-76149512023-08-14 Space, place and (waiting) time: reflections on health policy and politics Sheard, Sally Health Econ Policy Law Article Health systems have repeatedly addressed concerns about efficiency and equity by employing trans-national comparisons to draw out the strengths and weaknesses of specific policy initiatives. This paper demonstrates the potential for explicit historical analysis of waiting times for hospital treatment to add value to spatial comparative methodologies. Waiting times and the size of the lists of waiting patients have become key operational indicators. In the United Kingdom, as National Health Service (NHS) financial pressures intensified from the 1970s, waiting times have become a topic for regular public and political debate. Various explanations for waiting times include the following: hospital consultants manipulate NHS waiting lists to maintain their private practice; there is under-investment in the NHS; and available (and adequate) resources are being used inefficiently. Other countries have also experienced ongoing tensions between the public and private delivery of universal health care in which national and trans-national comparisons of waiting times have been regularly used. The paper discusses the development of key UK policies, and provides a limited Canadian comparative perspective, to explore wider issues, including whether ‘waiting crises’ were consciously used by policymakers, especially those brought into government to implement new economic and managerial strategies, to diminish the autonomy and authority of the medical professional in the hospital environment. 2018-07-01 2018-02-19 /pmc/articles/PMC7614951/ /pubmed/29457577 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1744133117000366 Text en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Article
Sheard, Sally
Space, place and (waiting) time: reflections on health policy and politics
title Space, place and (waiting) time: reflections on health policy and politics
title_full Space, place and (waiting) time: reflections on health policy and politics
title_fullStr Space, place and (waiting) time: reflections on health policy and politics
title_full_unstemmed Space, place and (waiting) time: reflections on health policy and politics
title_short Space, place and (waiting) time: reflections on health policy and politics
title_sort space, place and (waiting) time: reflections on health policy and politics
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7614951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29457577
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1744133117000366
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