A team from Imperial College Business School has been chosen by the Health Foundation to be part of its Efficiency Research Programme.
The award is for original research on system efficiency and value for money in health and social care.
Led by Marisa Miraldo, Associate Professor in Health Economics and Carol Propper, Chair in Economics, the project looks at how the social networks of healthcare professionals, geographical distance and competition between hospitals influence the take-up of innovative cancer treatments in the UK.
Commenting on the award yesterday, Professor Miraldo said: “We are delighted to receive this research grant from the Health Foundation. Our research aims to come up with cost effective solutions to real-life issues that affect people’s lives. We chose to focus on cancer because of its high incidence, associated costs to taxpayers and because it is an area in which rapid innovation is taking place, although the UK still lags behind Europe in survival rates.”
Her colleague Professor Propper added: “We chose to focus on senior healthcare professionals who, given their extensive knowledge and experience, play a key role in determining treatment but also have strong social networks to draw on for peer support. We also looked at how factors such as competition and collaboration between hospitals impact on decision-making and productivity.”
Imperial’s project is supported by the Health Foundation’s Efficiency Research Programme that explores some of the most powerful ways that health, or health and social care services can address the challenge of increasing value and providing more for less.
The programme will run for five years and each project will receive over £450,000 of funding to support the research.
Anita Charlesworth, Chief Economist from the Health Foundation said: “The Five Year Forward View set our plans to reform the way care is delivered and identified that the NHS will need to deliver £22 billion of efficiency savings by the end of the decade alongside additional taxpayer funding of £8 billion. Research evidence on how to improve the efficiency and productivity of health systems is comparatively limited. Our programme of investment seeks to make a contribution to work in this area.”
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Laura Singleton
Communications Division
