Summary
Contents
How do we understand health in relation to society? What role does culture play in shaping our experiences of, and orientation to, health and illness? How do we understand medicine and medical treatment within a sociological framework?
Privatization
Privatization
Privatization refers to a set of policies that aim to limit the role of public sector health care, increase the role of the private sector, while improving the performance of the remaining public sector.
The health service in Britain, like those of other developed countries, has long been pluralist in the sense that publicly funded (through taxation) and privately funded (through payment for a service in person or by private health insurance) health care have co-existed. However, health care reforms from the 1980s onwards have shifted the balance profoundly in favour of greater private sector involvement. Below we consider the strategies employed to achieve this and the reasons for doing so, with particular reference to the private acute sector. The consequences of such restructuring ...