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Since 2008, health policy in England has been focusing increasingly on improving quality in healthcare services. To ensure quality improvements in community nursing, providers are required to meet several quality targets, including an incentive scheme known as Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN). This paper reports on a study of how financial incentives are used in district nursing, an area of care which is particularly difficult to measure and monitor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contracting in the public sector is designed to enhance the accountability of service providers to their funders. The idea is that quality is improved by the use of service specifications, monitoring of performance and imposition of contractual sanctions. Socio-legal and economic theories of contract indicate that it will be difficult to make and enforce contracts to achieve this. The results of a study of National Health Services contracting in England and Wales are reported. We conclude that contracts alone are not sufficient to improve accountability – collibration of various regulatory measures (including more hierarchical mechanisms such as performance targets) is required. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

BackgroundPatient and Public involvement (PPI) in health care occupies a central place in Western democracies. In England, this theme has been continuously prominent since the introduction of market reforms in the early 1990s. The health care reforms implemented by the current Coalition Government are making primary care practitioners the main commissioners of health care services in the National Health Service, and a duty is placed on them to involve the public in commissioning decisions and strategies. Since implementation of PPI initiatives in primary care commissioning is not new, we asked how likely it is that the new reforms will make a difference. We scanned the main literature related to primary care-led commissioning and found little evidence of effective PPI thus far. We suggest that unless the scope and intended objectives of PPI are clarified and appropriate resources are devoted to it, PPI will continue to remain empty rhetoric and box ticking.AimTo examine the effect of previous PPI initiatives on health care commissioning and draw lessons for future development.MethodWe scanned the literature reporting on previous PPI initiatives in primary care-led commissioning since the introduction of the internal market in 1991. In particular, we looked for specific contexts, methods and outcomes of such initiatives.Findings1. PPI in commissioning has been constantly encouraged by policy makers in England. 2. Research shows limited evidence of effective methods and outcomes so far. 3. Constant reconfiguration of health care structures has had a negative impact on PPI. 4. The new structures look hardly better poised to bring about effective public and patient involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Choice has re-emerged as a key theme in UK public policy. Drawing on a major empirical study of choice in NHS London, the authors report on some important policy implications. First, NHS as well as private sector providers responded to pro choice incentives. Second, the supply-side response was patchy and narrow, based on pre-existing ideas. Third, a case study of a private sector provider suggested that it was able to generate extra capacity quickly and effectively. Fourth, clinicians highlighted the threat to continuity of care, particularly in the case of chronic or complex conditions, rather than simple or elective surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]