 An era of governance through performance management - New Labour's National Health Service from 1997 to 2010Laurence Ferry and Simona Scarparo Accounting History Review, 2015, vol. 25, issue 3, 219-238 Abstract: In 1997, the New Labour government inherited a 'crisis' in the UK National Health Service from the outgoing Conservative government. To address this perceived crisis, New Labour offered investment and, contrary to expectations, further neo-liberal health service reforms. In particular, the government extended the scope of performance management beyond financial numbers to encompass all aspects of managerial and organisational performance. Drawing on an analytics of government framework, this paper demonstrates how reforms were framed and given meaning through a framework of hierarchical accountability and centralised control. These panoptical arrangements relied on performance-management technologies of targets and ratings, which were linked to patient choice and a prospective funding system called 'Payment by Results'. In turn, these top-down technologies disciplined knowledge, identity, and visibility and control of practice. Date: 2015 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:acbsfi:v:25:y:2015:i:3:p:219-238 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/21552851.2015.1091673 Access Statistics for this article Accounting History Review is currently edited by Stephen Walker More articles in Accounting History Review from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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