The politics of medical quality: auditing doctors in the UK and the USA.
Following the 1989 white paper Working for Patients, medical audit has emerged as the principal officially-approved means of assuring the quality of NHS medical care. Beneath the surface consensus, however, significant arguments continue concerning both the purposes and the character of such audit. A 'medical model' of medical audit is in competition with a more managerial approach, while consumer interests, however unsuccessfully, are also trying to claim a role. Comparison with the system of peer review in the USA indicates that medical audit in the NHS is likely to be particularly weak with respect to public accountability. Nevertheless, when taken together with other features of the white paper's proposals, the universalization of medical audit offers managers an opportunity to begin to constrain the behaviour of hospital doctors at the local level.
Brunel University.
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Pollitt
D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D008485:Medical Audit / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D017146:Models, Organizational; D011057:Politics; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000592:standards; D011366:Professional Review Organizations / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000592:standards; D013222:State Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D006113:United Kingdom; D014481:United States