The voluntary sector and health policy: The role of national level health consumer and patients' organisations in the UK

Rob Baggott and Kathryn Jones

Social Science & Medicine, 2014, vol. 123, issue C, 202-209

Abstract: This article explores the policy role of health consumer and patients' organisations (HCPOs), an important subset of the UK voluntary health sector. Based on research findings from two surveys, the article examines the activities, resources and contacts of HCPOs. It also assesses their impact on health policy and reform. There is some evidence that HCPOs can influence policy and reform. However, much depends on the alliances they build with other policy actors (including other HCPOs), their resources and leadership. HCPOs seem to have more impact on the detail of policy than on the direction of travel. In addition, there are potentially adverse consequences for HCPOs that do engage with the policy process, which may partly explain why some are wary of such involvement. For example, it is possible that HCPOs can be manipulated by government and other powerful policy actors such as health professionals and the drugs industry.

Keywords: Health consumer and patients' organisations; Voluntary health sector; Impact; Policy; UK (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953614004456
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:socmed:v:123:y:2014:i:c:p:202-209

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.07.016

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().