Oecd Economic Survey of the United Kingdom 2004: Activity-based Funding, Incentives and Waiting times in Health Care

1. Even where central government has sufficient information to set relevant targets and measure outcomes, it still faces a basic implementation problem, because setting targets only affects behaviour by service providers, if they have an incentive and feel motivated to meet the targets. The main challenge for the UK performance management framework is therefore how funding mechanisms, organisations and the role of consumers can be adjusted to craft incentives to improve services and thereby meet the key targets, while reducing the need for detailed national targets and measurement.