Credit crunch health care: How economics can save our publicly funded health services

Description

World-leading health economist Cam Donaldson defends NHS-type systems on the same basis as their detractors: economic efficiency. However, protecting government funding of health care is not enough: scarcity has to be managed. Donaldson goes on to show how we can get more out of our systems by addressing issues of value for money. In particular, he demonstrates what has been achieved through health care reform but questions how much more this can deliver relative to getting serious about priority setting. The issues addressed in the book have global relevance and this accessible book will therefore appeal to the public, health professionals and health policy specialists.

Cam Donaldson holds the Yunus Chair in Social Business & Health at Glasgow Caledonian University. From 2002-2009, he held the Health Foundation Chair in Health Economics at Newcastle University, where he was founding Director of the Institute of Health & Society and professor in the Newcastle University Business School. He held the Svare Chair in Health Economics at the University of Calgary from 1998-2002, having first become a professor of health economics in 1996 whilst at the Health Economics Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen.

"As ever, my eminent colleague, Cam Donaldson, demonstrates in straightforward language how central economics is to the future of health care in Canada, the UK and internationally. This is economics with a human - and humane - face. Everyone concerned about health care needs to read this book." Professor Anthony J. Culyer Ontario Research Chair in Health Policy & System Design, University of Toronto, Canada; and Professor of Economics, University of York, England. "Cam Donaldson is an excellent provocative economics writer who can tell it like it is and engage people in the big issues of the day. This book is open to everyone but does not simplify the complex world that we face. Anyone who pays for or manages health services will benefit from this book, including every clinician and every citizen." Sir Muir Gray, CBE, Co-Director, NHS QIPP Programme