ABSTRACT
The evidence from the previous chapter showed that the average waiting times of fund-holding patients on the elective waiting list who received operations covered by the fund-holding scheme were generally shorter than the waits endured by other patients. But in the context of comparing the internal market’s primary purchasers, that finding alone says little about the effectiveness of fund-holders as commissioners, relative to the health authority, if they had received overgenerous budgets to purchase elective surgery.
