How does for-profit outsourcing impact healthcare quality?

Project description

What happens when public services are provided by private sector providers? For decades, England's NHS has been increasingly privatised through the for-profit delivery of health services. While existing evidence indicates a correlation between increased privatisation and higher mortality rates, the specific mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are poorly understood - a huge gap in our understanding of the for-profit provision of welfare state services.

This project seeks to address this gap in knowledge by considering three mechanisms:

1. the introduction of health inequalities;
2. selective provision of services by for-profit providers;
3. the depletion of system-wide resources.

This project will ultimately answer how is privatisation impacting quality of care and who is benefitting/suffering as a result. England's NHS, like many public health services around the world, is being slowly privatised - understanding how this is impacting health outcomes is integral if we are to protect the quality of care provided.