Estimating the health benefits of reducing technical efficiency in the NHS: a scoping study
Theme 5: Empirical work on the marginal productivity of public expenditure in health and care
Recent findings suggest some tension between measures of the marginal productivity and the technical efficiency of the NHS. While marginal productivity appears to increase over time (Martin et al., 2023), technical efficiency has been reported to fall in recent years (Arabadzhyan et al., 2022). With very little knowledge about the links between marginal productivity and technical efficiency, it may be difficult to assess, for example, whether there is a trade-off in the different policy decisions informed by these existing measures. It is therefore important to investigate their relationship and, in doing so, estimate the potential health benefit of reducing inefficiencies.
To our knowledge no empirical study has attempted to combine measures of technical efficiency with estimates of marginal productivity and the causal effect on health outcomes. Therefore, the scoping of both methods and the range of possible data sources is required to establish the feasibility of conducting this research and to develop a detailed project template for possible empirical work.
Aims
This project aims to provide a better understanding of the relationship between marginal productivity and technical efficiency, and the health benefits of reducing inefficiencies. During this initial scoping stage, the project will consist of a critical review of empirical methods and measures of technical inefficiency, which currently inform policy. This will inform proposed empirical strategies which can combine estimates of marginal productivity with measures of technical efficiency and, in doing so, estimate the potential health benefits of reducing technical inefficiency.
Project Team
Francesco Longo, Karl Claxton
Contact
Francesco Longo francesco.longo@york.ac.uk