ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a number of healthcare frameworks and discusses how a supplier can optimise its position within any one market. It outlines a generic model of healthcare provision and then provides some specific examples. The chapter shows how an organisation can best position itself within any one market and gain an optimum and sustainable position. It explores the proportion of healthcare spending funded directly by taxation is a major political factor in the debate, and one that will dictate the attractiveness of a market to a supplier. The chapter explains that suppliers respond to market conditions by adapting their infrastructure investments to the perceived level of opportunity available, balanced against their perception of risk involved. The actual operation of healthcare provision within a market is related to the level of investment and resources that suppliers are prepared to make, given the attitude of the regulator manifest in the regulatory and pricing framework that they establish.
