Intended for healthcare professionals

Letters Competition in healthcare

Two issues with competition in healthcare

BMJ 2011; 343 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d4735 (Published 25 July 2011) Cite this as: BMJ 2011;343:d4735
  1. Lucy A Reynolds, research fellow1
  1. 1London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK
  1. lucy.reynolds{at}lshtm.ac.uk

Two issues are important in any discussion of competition in healthcare.

Firstly, while “any qualified provider” (AQP) now replaces “any willing provider” (AWP), comparison of the mid-2010 Department of Health procurement guidance with this month’s NHS Confederation advice shows that their commissioning processes are identical.1 The market based AWP commissioning process conforms to EU public procurement regulations. “AQP” is meaningless in EU law, so the AWP process has merely been …

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