Health Service Organization in the UK: a Political Economy Approach

This paper revisits Harrison and Wood's (1999) account of health service organizational design in the UK to bring that account up to date. It also attempts to broaden it through an increased use of the political economy perspective it incorporated. As a consequence, the paper presents a number of alternative findings to Harrison and Wood, reconsidering their analysis of organization from ‘blueprint’ to ‘design’, and finding that Jessop's framework, utilizing the movement from the Keynesian Welfare National State toward the Schumpeterian Workfare Postnational Regime ( Jessop 1999 ), is more appropriate in explaining the reasons underpinning change in health services in the UK, and also in demonstrating their likely future direction.