Buyer Power and Price Discrimination: The Case of the UK Care Home Market

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Hviid ◽  
Ruth Hancock
Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 767
Author(s):  
Connie Lethin ◽  
Andrea Kenkmann ◽  
Carlos Chiatti ◽  
Jonas Christensen ◽  
Tamara Backhouse ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected care workers all over the globe, as older and more vulnerable people face a high risk of developing severe symptoms and dying from the virus infection. The aim of this study was to compare staff experiences of stress and anxiety as well as internal and external organizational support in Sweden, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom (UK) in order to determine how care staff were affected by the pandemic. A 29-item online questionnaire was used to collect data from care staff respondents: management (n = 136), nurses (n = 132), nursing assistants (n = 195), and other healthcare staff working in these organizations (n = 132). Stress and anxiety levels were highest in the UK and Germany, with Swedish staff showing the least stress. Internal and external support only partially explain the outcomes. Striking discrepancies between different staff groups’ assessment of organizational support as well as a lack of staff voice in the UK and Germany could be key factors in understanding staff’s stress levels during the pandemic. Structural, political, cultural, and economic factors play a significant role, not only factors within the care organization or in the immediate context.


2010 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 470-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Elia ◽  
C. A. Russell ◽  
R. J. Stratton

In 2007, the estimated cost of disease-related malnutrition in the UK was in excess of £13×109. At any point in time, only about 2% of over 3 million individuals at risk of malnutrition were in hospital, 5% in care homes and the remainder in the community (2–3% in sheltered housing). Some government statistics (England) grossly underestimated the prevalence of malnutrition on admission and discharge from hospital (1000–3000 annually between 1998 and 2008), which is less than 1% of the prevalence (about 3 million in 2007–2008) established by national surveys using criteria based on the ‘Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool’ (‘MUST’). The incidence of malnutrition-related deaths in hospitals, according to government statistics (242 deaths in England in 2007), was also <1% of an independent estimate, which was as high as 100 000/year. Recent healthcare policies have reduced the number of hospital and care home beds and encouraged care closer to home. Such policies have raised issues about education and training of the homecare workforce, including 6 million insufficiently supported informal carers (10% of the population), the commissioning process, and difficulties in implementing nutritional policies in a widely distributed population. The four devolved nations in the UK (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales) have developed their own healthcare polices to deal with malnutrition. These generally aim to span across all care settings and various government departments in a co-ordinated manner, but their effectiveness remains to be properly evaluated.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura J. Hughes ◽  
Nicolas Farina ◽  
Thomas E. Page ◽  
Naji Tabet ◽  
Sube Banerjee

ABSTRACTBackground:Over 400,000 people live in care home settings in the UK. One way of understanding and improving the quality of care provided is by measuring and understanding the quality of life (QoL) of those living in care homes. This review aimed to identify and examine the psychometric properties including feasibility of use of dementia-specific QoL measures developed or validated for use in care settings.Design:Systematic review.Methods:Instruments were identified using four electronic databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and CINAHL) and lateral search techniques. Searches were conducted in January 2017. Studies which reported on the development and/or validation of dementia specific QoL instruments for use in care settings written in English were eligible for inclusion. The methodological quality of the studies was assessed using the COSMIN checklist. Feasibility was assessed using a checklist developed specifically for the review.Results:Six hundred and sixteen articles were identified in the initial search. After de-duplication, screening and further lateral searches were performed, 25 studies reporting on 9 dementia-specific QoL instruments for use in care home settings were included in the review. Limited evidence was available on the psychometric properties of many instruments identified. Higher-quality instruments were not easily accessible or had low feasibility of use.Conclusions:Few high-quality instruments of QoL validated for use in care home settings are readily or freely available. This review highlights the need to develop a well-validated measure of QoL for use within care homes that is also feasible and accessible.


Dementia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 1316-1324
Author(s):  
Claire Royston ◽  
Gary Mitchell ◽  
Colin Sheeran ◽  
Joanne Strain ◽  
Sue Goldsmith

There are an increasing number of people living with dementia in care home settings. Recent reports suggest that people who deliver care to residents living with dementia in care homes require specialist support to provide optimum care. To address this need Four Seasons Health Care, the largest provider of care homes within the UK today, sought to design a dementia care framework that enhanced the quality of life for people living with dementia in their care homes. The framework was designed using a robust evidence base, engagement with people living with dementia, their care partners, policy-writers, multidisciplinary professionals and people within the organisation. This paper describes the methodology behind the dementia care framework and outcomes data from the first phase (of 20 care homes that included the care of 451 people living with dementia). The main outcome was a significant improvement in the quality of the lives of residents across biological, psychological, social and spiritual needs.


2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 18-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Scourfield

This paper comments on emerging themes derived from recent official publications on older people's advocacy in the UK. There is an examination of relevant policy documents and the responses from service user groups. Discussion includes: clarity in defining advocacy; the nature of the advocacy relationship; sustained and reliable financing of advocacy services; the uneven nature of provision; lack of inter‐agency connectivity; the need to establish national standards for advocacy; problems of mental capacity; and advocacy for care home residents and for minority groups. The need for and direction of further research is proposed.


2010 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. Russell ◽  
M. Elia

More than 3 million individuals are estimated to be at risk of malnutrition in the UK, of whom about 93% live in the community. BAPEN's Nutrition Screening Week surveys using criteria based on the ‘Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool’ (‘MUST’) revealed that 28% of individuals on admission to hospital and 30–40% of those admitted to care homes in the previous 6 months were malnourished (medium+high risk using ‘MUST’). About three quarters of hospital admissions and about a third of care home admissions came from their own homes with a malnutrition prevalence of 24% in each case. Outpatient studies using ‘MUST’ showed that 16–20% patients were malnourished and these were associated with more hospital admissions and longer length of stay. In sheltered housing, 10–14% of the tenants were found to be malnourished, with an overall estimated absolute prevalence of malnutrition which exceeded that in hospitals. In all cases, the majority of subjects were at high risk of malnutrition. These studies have helped establish the magnitude of the malnutrition problem in the UK and identified the need for integrated strategies between and within care settings. While hospitals provide a good opportunity to identify malnourished patients among more than 10 million patients admitted there annually and the five- to six-fold greater number attending outpatient departments, commissioners and providers of healthcare services should be aware that much of the malnutrition present in the UK originates in the community before admission to hospitals or care homes or attendance at outpatient clinics.


2021 ◽  
pp. 753-806
Author(s):  
Richard Whish ◽  
David Bailey

This chapter considers abusive pricing practices under Article 102 TFEU and the Chapter II prohibition in the Competition Act 1998. It first discusses various cost concepts used in determining whether a price is abusive. It then deals in turn with excessive pricing; conditional rebates; bundling; predatory pricing; margin squeeze; price discrimination; and practices that are harmful to the single market. This taxonomy is over-schematic, in that the categories overlap with one another: for example price discrimination may be both exploitative and exclusionary, and an excessively high price may in reality be a way of preventing parallel imports or of excluding a competitor from the market; nevertheless this division may provide helpful insights into the way in which the law is applied in practice. In each section the application of Article 102 by the European Commission and by the EU Courts will be considered first, followed by cases in the UK. Reference will be made where appropriate to the Commission’s Guidance on the Commission’s Enforcement Priorities in Applying Article [102 TFEU] to Abusive Exclusionary Conduct by Dominant Undertakings.


Author(s):  
Richard Whish ◽  
David Bailey

This chapter considers abusive pricing practices under Article 102 TFEU and the Chapter II prohibition in the Competition Act 1998. It discusses cost concepts used in determining whether a price is abusive and deals with excessive pricing; conditional rebates; bundling; predatory pricing; margin squeeze; price discrimination; and practices harmful to the single market. Price discrimination may be both exploitative and exclusionary and an excessively high price may be a way of preventing parallel imports or excluding a competitor from the market; but the division may provide helpful insights into the way in which the law is applied in practice. In each section the application of Article 102 by the European Commission and the EU Courts is considered, followed by cases in the UK. Where appropriate, reference is made to the Commission’s Guidance on the Commission’s Enforcement Priorities in Applying Article [102 TFEU] to Abusive Exclusionary Conduct by Dominant Undertakings.


2010 ◽  
Vol 69 (OCE7) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Cunneen ◽  
J. Jones ◽  
H. I. M. Davidson ◽  
E. Bannerman
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Roman Inderst ◽  
Tommaso Valletti

Abstract This paper introduces a model of third-degree price discrimination where a seller's pricing power is constrained by buyers' outside options. Price uniformity performs more efficiently than discriminatory pricing, as uniform pricing allows weaker buyers to exploit the more attractive outside option of stronger buyers. This mechanism is markedly different from the mechanisms that are at work in case uniform pricing is imposed on an unconstrained monopolist.


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