Health system reform in the United Kingdom

Abstract

How to control the increasing health expenditures is a common problem in the developed countries. The main causes of this increase are ageing of the society and medical innovation. The UK government has introduced a market oriented health reform in order to balance the increasing expenditures and the quality of care. For example, they have introduced the GP Fundholding, Private Financial Initiative (PFI) for construction of public hospital, and personal budget system (a patient owns a budget for buying health services in the deregulated market). However, there is little evidence indicating the effectiveness of these programs. On the other hand, it is important to strengthen the labor policy in order to maintain the social security system. For example, programs for increasing the employment rate and those for increasing productivity work sharing are such policies. From this viewpoint, the EU countries have introduced a series of active employment policies, i.e., job training for unemployed persons and work sharing. Furthermore, as other authors report in other articles of this volume, the government of the UK has introduced the Fit for Work (FFW) program that intends to medically support workers.