What is total purchasing?

Abstract

“Total purchasing” by general practitioners who have been delegated a budget by their local health authority to purchase potentially all the hospital and community health services for their patients is the latest and most ambitious extension of the concept of general practitioner fundholding. Several pilots have been established to test the concept, and a national evaluation has been assessing the costs and benefits attributable to total purchasing. We present here a summary description of the English and Scottish total purchasing pilot projects based on the preliminary report of the national evaluation.1 Evaluative data are not yet available on the consequences of the pilot proj