<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>In 2002 the Irish Government announced the establishment of the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) as a means of addressing patients’ long wait times for public hospital treatment. A new health strategy published in December 2001 promised that ‘by the end of 2004 all public patients will be scheduled to commence treatment within a maximum of three months of referral from an outpatient department’. Qualitative methods, including documentary analysis and key informant interviews, were used to gain an understanding of this policy process. The findings were then analysed through the framework proposed for this special issue where ideas, institutions and politics interact. Using McConnell’s typology of policy failure, this research finds the NTPF to be an example of a policy failure because, even though tens of thousands of public patients have been treated under the NTPF, waiting times and numbers have persisted and escalated since the NTPF was established.</p></abstract>

In 2002 the Irish Government announced the establishment of the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) as a means of addressing patients’ long wait times for public hospital treatment. A new health strategy published in December 2001 promised that ‘by the end of 2004 all public patients will be scheduled to commence treatment within a maximum of three months of referral from an outpatient department’. Qualitative methods, including documentary analysis and key informant interviews, were used to gain an understanding of this policy process. The findings were then analysed through the framework proposed for this special issue where ideas, institutions and politics interact. Using McConnell’s typology of policy failure, this research finds the NTPF to be an example of a policy failure because, even though tens of thousands of public patients have been treated under the NTPF, waiting times and numbers have persisted and escalated since the NTPF was established.

The National Treatment Purchase Fund – A success for some patients yet a public policy failure?

Department of Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine

Administration

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

In 2002 the Irish Government announced the establishment of the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) as a means of addressing patients’ long wait times for...

The National Treatment Purchase Fund – A success for some patients yet a public policy failure?

Published Online: Jun 03, 2019

Page range: 47 - 69

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/admin-2019-0013

Keywords
Health policy analysis, Irish health reform, privatisation, hospital care, policy failure

© 2019 Sara Burke et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The National Treatment Purchase Fund – A success for some patients yet a public policy failure?

Published Online: Jun 03, 2019

Page range: 47 - 69

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/admin-2019-0013

KeywordsHealth policy analysis, Irish health reform, privatisation, hospital care, policy failure

© 2019 Sara Burke et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Health policy analysis, Irish health reform, privatisation, hospital care, policy failure