Are patients really consumers?

Citation

(2001), "Are patients really consumers?", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 5 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2001.26705baf.009

Are patients really consumers?

Are patients really consumers?

M. Keaney, International Journal of Social Economics (UK), Vol. 26 No. 5, 1999

Examines the extent to which the UK National Health Service (NHS) treats patients as consumers, and the resentment that this provokes among some health professionals who fail to accept that a seriously-ill patient is "consuming" health care as one would consume a holiday in Florida. Discusses the neoclassical view of economic activity which supports the notion of customer sovereignty by ignoring problems associated with the distinction between public and private services. Questions the virtue of expanding health economics as a sub-discipline, which threatens the fabric of the under-valued and under-financed service, creating a system of incentives that encourage economic priorities above those of a patient's health. Argues that the concept of health care being a commodity does not fit with the notion of a patient-clinician partnership, suggesting that advances in health-care benefit should be for the benefit of the individual and society rather than treated as a manufactured commodity available for purchase.

Quality focus says: A journalistic article with implications both for research and practice.