Aim
The New Public Management approaches in the 1980s fostered the development of quasi-markets for the provision of public services in order to improve efficiency as well as user satisfaction with service provision in Europe. As a consequence, the share of private (for-profit and non-profit) providers in residential and home care in most European countries increased considerably over the past decades. However, given the high complexity of long-term care services and the difficulty of defining clearly measurable outcomes, contracting out of many aspects of long-term care services requires time and investments in a strong regulatory environment and the development of evidence-based guidelines.
While market and government failures are present in long-term care, one key question is thus whether to ‘make or buy’ such services in order to establish a balanced mix that responds to citizens’ expectations and demand.The “Make or Buy” project, commissioned by the Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, seeks to provide an answer to the question whether to ‘make or buy’ the provision of long-term care.The project aims to review evidence from several countries and provide policy lessons and mutual learning opportunities on the introduction of market mechanisms in long-term care and its impact on the outcomes for users, on quality of care, the management of care markets and quality management systems.The results will give guidance to the Swedish stakeholders as well as to policy-makers in other countries.Therefore, the objectives of the project are:
- To elaborate on theoretical aspects relevant for the make or buy decision (competition, transaction costs, contract design, market mechanisms, organizational theory).
- To map experiences of selected countries with the introduction of competition and user choice.
- To review empirical findings on differences in long-term care provider quality between types of ownership (public, private, non-for-profit).
- To identify mitigating methods and mechanisms to address critical issues of quality assessment and quality assurance in a mixed economy of long-term care.
- To discuss future challenges related to the findings and on the basis of current international developments in the supply of social services.
The results and implications of privatisation and individualisation of care services on competition, choice and quality of care were discussed with Swedish experts in long-term care in a workshop held in Stockholm on 29 January 2014.
http://www.euro.centre.org/data/1402907971_54043.pdf