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Naming and shaming: the impacts of different regimes on hospital waiting times in England and Wales

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  • Besley, Timothy
  • Burchardi, Konrad B.
  • Bevan, Gwen

Abstract

Improving accountability in public services has been a central objective of many public sector reforms in recent years. Chief among these have been efforts to generate observable performance measures as a basis for monitoring performance. This paper examines a natural experiment in regimes applied to waiting list targets for hospital admissions in England and Wales. Prior to 2001, each country had similar policies, organisational structures for hospital care, and levels of resources. After 2001, the principal difference between the countries were the consequences for hospitals that failed to meet targets for waiting times: in England, failure resulted in sanctions in a process of `naming and shaming', but in Wales, failure was perceived to result in extra resources. We use hospitals in Wales as a 'control group', to examine the effect of `naming and shaming' in England. We found that this policy did indeed reduce waiting times in England as compared with Wales. However, there is some evidence there was in England, initially, some shuffling of prospective patients to meet specific targets which increased mean waiting times.

Suggested Citation

  • Besley, Timothy & Burchardi, Konrad B. & Bevan, Gwen, 2009. "Naming and shaming: the impacts of different regimes on hospital waiting times in England and Wales," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 33775, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:33775
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33775/
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Anika Kreutzberg & Rowena Jacobs, 2020. "Improving access to services for psychotic patients: does implementing a waiting time target make a difference," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 21(5), pages 703-716, July.
    3. Guglielmo Barone & Guido de Blasio & Alessio D'Ignazio & Andrea Salvati, 2017. "Incentives to local public service provision: an evaluation of Italy�s Obiettivi di Servizio," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 388, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    4. Maxime Le Bihan & Benjamin Monnery, 2018. "Can public and private sanctions discipline politicians? Evidence from the French Parliament," Working Papers 1808, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    5. Cabus, Sofie J. & De Witte, Kristof, 2012. "Naming and shaming in a ‘fair’ way. On disentangling the influence of policy in observed outcomes," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 767-787.
    6. Samuel Bowles & Sandra Polania-Reyes, 2011. "Economic incentives and social preferences: substitutes or complements?," Department of Economics University of Siena 617, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    7. Cooper, Zack & Gibbons, Stephen & Skellern, Matthew, 2018. "Does competition from private surgical centres improve public hospitals' performance? Evidence from the English National Health Service," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 63-80.
    8. Maxime Le Bihan & Benjamin Monnery, 2018. "Can Public and Private Sanctions Discipline Politicians? Evidence from the French Parliament," Working Papers hal-04141779, HAL.
    9. Magdalena Kludacz-Alessandri, 2016. "Non-financial dimensions of measurement and assessment in the performance model for hospitals," Managerial Economics, AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Management, vol. 17(1), pages 93-121.
    10. Khic-Houy Prang & Rachel Canaway & Marie Bismark & David Dunt & Margaret Kelaher, 2018. "The impact of Australian healthcare reforms on emergency department time-based process outcomes: An interrupted time series study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-14, December.
    11. Shaun Larcom & Luca A. Panzone & Timothy Swanson, 2017. "Follow-the-leader? Measuring the internalisation of law," CIES Research Paper series 50-2017, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
    12. Gerdes, Christer, 2015. "Does Performance Information Affect Job Seekers in Selecting Private Providers in Voucher-Based ALMP Programs?," IZA Discussion Papers 8992, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. De Rosis, Sabina & Guidotti, Elisa & Zuccarino, Sara & Venturi, Giulia & Ferré, Francesca, 2020. "Waiting time information in the Italian NHS: A citizen perspective," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(8), pages 796-804.
    14. Prasenjit Banerjee & Rupayan Pal & Jason F. Shogren, 2016. "Honor and stigma in mechanisms for environmental protection," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2016-017, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    15. Prasenjit Banerjee & Rupayan Pal, 2016. "Honor and Stigma in Mechanisms for Environmental Protection," Working Papers id:10883, eSocialSciences.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    hospital waiting times and targets;

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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