IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/hecopl/v2y2007i03p317-325_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Visible hand or invisible fist?: the new market and choice in the English NHS

Author

Listed:
  • PATON, CALUM

Abstract

As England (unlike the rest of the UK) retreads the market route in health policy, it is worth asking two questions. Firstly, is the government right that the ‘new market’ (as it refuses to call it, except in private seminars) is fundamentally different from the 1990s’ internal market which New Labour allegedly abolished in 1997? Secondly, given that the new market is clearly not characterized by the invisible hand, should we characterize it as steered ‘economically’ by a visible (facilitating) hand, on the one hand, or managed ‘politically’ by a fist which would like to remain invisible in order to maintain its power? This article goes on to examine choice in the new NHS with reference to Hirschman (1970), arguing that genuflections to the latter by pro-choice advocates such as Le Grand (2003) are just that – genuflections. Hirschman is used as a taxi by which to reach a desired destination rather than a stimulus to critical reflection, Hirschman-style, upon how ‘exit’, ‘voice’, and particular combinations of ‘exit’ and ‘voice’ may produce perverse outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Paton, Calum, 2007. "Visible hand or invisible fist?: the new market and choice in the English NHS," Health Economics, Policy and Law, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(3), pages 317-325, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:hecopl:v:2:y:2007:i:03:p:317-325_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S174413310700415X/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jones, Lorelei & Exworthy, Mark & Frosini, Francesca, 2013. "Implementing market-based reforms in the English NHS: Bureaucratic coping strategies and social embeddedness," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 52-59.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:hecopl:v:2:y:2007:i:03:p:317-325_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/hep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.