Divided by choice? Private providers, patient choice and hospital sorting in the English National Health service

Divided by choice? Private providers, patient choice and hospital sorting in the English National Health service This study examines the impact of the NHS reforms of the 2000s which enabled privately-owned hospitals to enter the NHS market. It finds that post-reform, poor and ethnic minority patients were much less likely to choose private hospitals; and that the key factors in choice related to the geographic distribution of hospitals and health-based criteria for treatment from private providers. Institute for Fiscal Studies