Overview
COmpetition and healthcare
Carol's research has focused on the impact of competition in healthcare. Her work has shown that competition has a positive impact on quality in both the hospital sector and the primary care sector in England. She has also shown that competition improves managerial quality in the NHS. Her current research examines the impact of CEOS in the NHS on hospital performance.
Targets and Terror
Waiting times have been a central concern in the English NHS, where care is provided free at the point of delivery and is rationed by waiting time. Pro-market reforms introduced in the NHS in the 1990s were not accompanied by large drops in waiting times. As a result, the English government in 2000 adopted the use of an aggressive policy of targets coupled with publication of waiting times data at hospital level and strong sanctions for poor performing hospital managers. This regime has been dubbed ‘targets and terror’. Carol Propper discusses this research
View paper or listen to podcast here
Centralised Pay Setting
Nurses' pay in England is set centrally with little local variation. This means that hospitals in high cost areas like London and the South East struggle to recruit and retain staff. As a consequence, they treat fewer patients and have higher fatality rates among patients admitted with emergency heart attacks. Carol Propper discusses this research (Full Press Release)
View paper or listen to podcast here
COVID-19
Carol Propper contributed to an e-book of a collection of transcripts, published by CEPR, titled Capitalism after Covid: Conversations with 21 Economists. The book offers the thoughts of 21 top economists representing most of the different fields of economics on the key challenges the world faces after the Covid pandemic. Luis Garicano has written a short column at VoxEU summarizing the interviews, and has posted a twitter thread with the key points.
Carol Propper's recent research relating to COVID-19 was mentioned in a comment piece in The Times, which compares the measures taken in Taiwan to contain the coronavirus, compared to the UK's latest lockdown.
Can the NHS recover from coronavirus?
The longer run health and healthcare implications of COVID-19
The wider impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on the NHS
Recessions and health: the long-term health consequences of responses to the coronavirus
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Guest Lectures
Competition in Health Care: Lessons for Europe, Spanish Health Economics Association Key Note lecture, 2019
Lessons from experiments in competition and choice in healthcare supply in England and Europe, Opening Plenary International Health Economics Association Boston 2017 Congress, Boston, USA, 2017
Management of Acute Provider Performance, Seminar for Imperial Business in the City series, London, 2017
Research on Competition in the NHS, Keynote speech at South Danish Universities, COHERE Annual Conference, Denmark, 2017
Research on Competition in the NHS, Talk at Associated Medical Services (AMS) Healthcare Symposium – Canadian Medicare 2017: Historical Reflections, Future Directions, Toronto, Canada, 2017
Management of Acute Provider Performance, Seminar at Melbourne Institute, Australia, 2017
Management of Acute Provider Performance, Seminar at Monash University Centre for Health Economics, Australia, 2017
Management of Acute Provider Performance, Seminar at ISER, University of Essex, UK, 2017
Research on Competition in the NHS, Talk given to International Consulting Economists' Association (ICEA) members, London, 2017
Management of Acute Provider Performance, Seminar at Paris School of Economics, Paris, France, 2017
Management of Acute Provider Performance, Seminar at Department of Health, London, 2017
Does Competition in Healthcare Work?, University of Sheffield, UK, 2016
Lessons from the UK in use of choice and competition in the NHS, Annual seminar at Valtion Taloudellinen Tutkimuskeskus (VATT) Institute for Economic Research to Finnish Policy Makers, Helsinki, Finland, 2016
Competition in Healthcare, Keynote at Competent in Competition + Health (CINCH) – Essen Health Symposium, Germany, 2016
Productivity in Healthcare: Lessons from the UK, Brookings Institution, Washington D.C., 2016
Research on Equity in Health Care, Presentation at Institute for Fiscal Studies Conference 2016, London, 2016
Using Choice and Competition in Healthcare, University of Lancaster Annual Esmee Fairburn Lecture, Lancaster, UK, 2015
Management in Healthcare, Competition and Markets Authority, London, 2015
Management in Healthcare, Monitor, Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), London, 2015
Management and Competition in Health Care, Invited expert presentation at Parliamentary Group on Healthcare, London, 2015
Management and Competition in Health Care, Keynote address at Finnish Health Economics Society, Finland, 2014
Free to choose? Reform and demand response in the English National Health Service, Invited talk at University of Toulouse, France, 2014
Management and Competition in Health Care, Uppsala University, Sweden, 2014
Free to choose? Reform and demand response in the English National Health Service, Odense, Denmark, 2014
Management and Competition in Health Care, Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden, 2014
Free to choose? Reform and demand response in the English National Health Service, Institute For Fiscal Studies, London, 2014
Free to choose? Reform and demand response in the English National Health Service, American Health Economics Conference, Philadelphia, USA, 2013