Who Decides Which Pharmacy Services are Provided in UK National Health Service Hospitals?

An interview survey of 129 UK National Health Service doctors, nurses, pharmacists and managers at eight acute care hospitals was conducted in 1994. The survey examined several topics including whether the introduction of the internal market had affected hospital pharmacy services and what those effects had been. An internal market has been introduced and it has had significant effects on the nature and structure of hospital pharmacy services. Directorate pharmacy services were available at six sites. Contracts for specific, usually novel, services had been implemented at one site and contracts had been introduced widely at another hospital. However, all the features of a market were not present at any site. Market orientation also has implications for the equity of service provision, primarily because decision-making regarding service provision is increasingly in the hands of the clinical directors, rather than pharmacy managers. The effects of this change are not yet clear.