Health care reform in Portugal: an evaluation of the NHS experience

Monica Oliveira and Carlos Gouveia Pinto

Health Economics, 2005, vol. 14, issue S1, S203-S220

Abstract: Since 1979, the Portuguese health care system has been based on a National Health Service structure that is expected to promote equity, efficiency, quality, accountability and the devolution of power. In this article, we analyse the content and impact of policies designed to reform the system between 1979 and 2002. This article differs from previous studies in that it uses a stage‐based framework to evaluate the policy‐making process and the impact of health care reform throughout different political cycles. We show that the NHS model has never been fully implemented and that many policies have diverted the system from its original objectives. Different governments have endorsed a progressive split between financing and provision and the institution of ‘new public management’ rules in public providers. We conclude that most policies put forward by Social Democratic governments have aimed at influencing demand, while Socialist governments have targeted the supply side. These policies have led to increases in health expenditure that have been comparatively more cost‐shared by the State under Socialist governments. We show some overriding trends, namely as follows: despite huge improvements in health outcomes, the system is nonetheless lasting to meet its goals, particularly in terms of the equity of access and utilisation; accountability problems, inadequacies in the use of operational reforming tools (such as resource allocation mechanisms) and a lack of mechanisms to promote efficient behaviour, are all associated with cost containment problems. Structural reforms have been undertaken since 2002 and these have offered some potential for improving accountability and efficiency. Nonetheless, the success of these reforms calls for certain conditions that do not seem to have been fulfilled. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1037

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:14:y:2005:i:s1:p:s203-s220

Access Statistics for this article

Health Economics is currently edited by Alan Maynard, John Hutton and Andrew Jones

More articles in Health Economics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().