Markets and Networks: Contracting in Community Health Services

Markets and Networks examines the impact of the National Health Service internal market on an increasingly important sector of health care - community health services. It examines current developments in the commissioning and purchasing of district nursing, health visiting and community-based therapy services. It discusses the process and recent experience of contracting between health authority and GP fundholder purchasers and community health services providers.
Using a variety of sources and qualitative evidence from intensive case studies, it analyses the pattern of relationships between managers, professionals and client/user groups. The central argument is that community health services are extremely difficult to specify and evaluate in contractual terms. Their organization and delivery are based on complex networks requiring interdependence and trust, which are threatened by adversarial contracting and market competition.
This book will be of interest to students, teachers, researchers and practitioners in sociology, social policy and health service studies.

Rob Flynn is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Salford.