City Research Online

Abstract

System level decisions around the commissioning and provision of healthcare services in England have contributed to barriers in accessing the NHS. In this article, we ask how to better regulate resource allocation to ensure greater equity in access to healthcare services. First, we focus on the Health and Care Act 2022 which, drawing on principles of deliberative regulation to address health inequalities, initiates a shift away from previous regulatory approaches towards a collaborative decision-making model. We then shed light on the systemic factors creating and maintaining access barriers by considering shortcomings in previous regulatory approaches. With these in mind, we consider whether deliberative regulation - providing communities with resources to create normative solutions to intrinsic issues - could help address these systemic challenges. To assess the potential of laws or policies to achieve greater equity in healthcare, we also introduce an evaluative framework based on deliberative principles. We apply this framework on a case study of an Integrated Care System to gauge the extent to which the Health and Care Act 2022 has indeed been effectively adopting a deliberative approach by intentionally engaging marginalised communities in decision-making and devising accountability mechanisms for the allocation of healthcare resources.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Medical Law Review following peer review. The version of record Germain, S. & Veronesi, G. (2024). Harnessing Deliberative Regulation to Address Inequities in Accessing Healthcare Services in England. Medical Law Review, will be available here - https://academic.oup.com/medlaw.
Publisher Keywords:	Deliberative Regulation, Health Equity, Integrated Care Systems, Marginalised Groups, NHS
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform K Law R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Departments:	The City Law School The City Law School > Academic Programmes The City Law School > International Law and Affairs Group
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

Export

Downloads