7.5.2 Technical efficiency
Measures of technical efficiency include average length of stay in a hospital,
day-case surgery rates, levels of generic prescribing, staff turnover, sickness
absence rates and use of agency staff. For the most part the NHS is moving
forward in all of these areas. For example, in 2013 the United Kingdom had
the second shortest average length of stay for a normal delivery, 1.5 days,
compared to other OECD countries (OECD average of 2.9 days). However,
this may indicate differences in priorities or preferences rather than efficiency;
the average length of stay for acute myocardial infarction was 7.1 days in the
United Kingdom, above the OECD average of 6.8 (OECD, 2015).
A recent report by the Commonwealth Fund named the United Kingdom
as the most efficient health system among 11 high-income countries as a result
of factors such as low expenditure levels per capita as a proportion of GDP
and comparatively low levels of bureaucracy (for example, patients did not
have to spend a lot of time on paperwork related to medical care) (Davis et al.,
2014). However, it should be noted that the United Kingdom also performed
second from worst on the composite indicator of healthy lives in the very same
report. In this respect the United Kingdom health systems appear to be missing
their main goal – that of improving population health – due to relatively high
rates of amenable mortality, comparatively high infant mortality rates and low
healthy life expectancy at age 60 years, despite ranking as the most technically
efficient (Davis et al., 2014). However, it is important to reiterate that the United
Kingdom has experienced some of the largest improvements in key health
indicators such as amenable mortality among high-income countries during
the past decade.
7.6 Transparency and accountability
While the United Kingdom does not face transparency problems in financing
the health systems, such as widespread informal payments or tax evasion,
achieving transparency through public participation has thus far proven elusive.
Performance data for providers are made public to inform patients about
performance against standards. In England, patients can drive not only service
improvement but financial decisions (including funding private providers) by
exercising patient choice and taking their activity-based reimbursement to
wherever they feel they receive the best services. However, the public are not
given such a strong voice when major service changes or reorganizations are
being proposed. This means there are issues with the reality of accountability
Health systems in transition United Kingdom 111
where on paper there are consistent efforts to involve the general public in
decision-making but their priorities actually hold very little sway. There is
also a lack of transparency in how big financing decisions are made and there
is increasing need for greater transparency around the awarding of contracts
to commercial partners, particularly in England, because the greater the
involvement of private providers and markets in the health system, the greater
the need for regulation and transparency becomes