How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs

Public Services

It is often repeated that more competition should be introduced into the NHS to keep costs down - but it may in fact increase them.

It is often repeated that more competition should be introduced into the NHS to keep costs down. No doubt the prime minister will repeat the talking point in his much-trailed speech today. As leader of the opposition in 2009, claiming his plans for the NHS were in the spirit of Labour ministers who have since criticised the current policy, he said:

“The argument for more competition in the NHS seemed to have been won a long time ago. Blairites like Alan Milburn were evangelists for market mechanisms to drive up standards and drive down costs.”

However, there is evidence to suggest that choice and competition in healthcare will, in fact, increase the UK’s spending on health. Take this chart from Kaiser Permanente, who provide healthcare in the United States, on health spends in developed countries:


In fact, the United Kingdom, with its comparitively statist system, keeps costs down. Why might this be? It may be that in systems based on competition and choice, the lack of expertise on behalf of consumers means that providers can overcharge or charge for treatments which, in all honesty, probably do not have that much chance of working.

That the government are proposing a two-step choice – consumers choose thier GPs, who in turn help choose the treatment – may help with this; but then again, the consumer will always be at some information disadvantage.

How an information disadvantage can work in practice can be seen in the energy market, where the regulator OfGem has criticised providers for offering bamboozling products that means time-pressed consumers can’t make an informed choice, therby pushing up prices.

As it happens, it is the market in energy that the chief executive of Monitor, the body who will be responsible for competition in the NHS under the government’s plans, sees the NHS reforms as emulating.

No related posts.

43 Responses to “How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs”

  1. Save The NHS

    RT @wdjstraw: Competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs argues @DanielElton http://bit.ly/kLjSST

  2. Anon E Mouse

    Labour introduced private providers in the NHS in 2004.

    Why weren’t you complaining then?

  3. Daniel Pitt

    How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs: http://bit.ly/kLjSST #ConDemNation

  4. Ash

    “It may be that in systems based on competition and choice, the lack of expertise on behalf of consumers means that providers can overcharge or charge for treatments which, in all honesty, probably do not have that much chance of working.”

    This looks frighteningly plausible to me.

    As you say, the fact that GPs play a role in ‘choosing’ appropriate treatments should help; but it certainly doesn’t solve the problem. We could find that patients start ‘choosing’ one GP over another partly on the basis of their perceived willingness to give patients the treatment they’d ‘choose’ for themselves – antibiotics for colds, homeopathic remedies for migraines, etc. – leading to a situation in which GPs could only successfully ‘compete’ for patients by being prepared to waste money on in-demand but inappropriate treatments.

  5. Prateek Buch

    @West4MP on NHS competition, read this by @DanielElton @leftfootfwd http://bit.ly/iSM2uA – food for thought #NHSreform

Comments are closed.