Marketing set for key role in new NHS

The Chartered Institute of Marketing welcomes Lord Darzi's report on the NHS, which links service quality and funding for the first time.

The Institute, which recently published a White Paper on marketing in the NHS, urges marketers in the NHS to make the most of this opportunity to help create a truly patient-led NHS.

With funding for the first time being partially linked to service performance and patient experience, there are now real financial incentives for providing patients with the highest quality care.

Marketers, with their focus on understanding patient needs and improving the patient experience, will have an increasingly significant role to play in the NHS over the next decade.

David Thorp, Director of Research and Information at The Chartered Institute of Marketing, welcomed the explicit link now being made between patient experience and payment.

"As the NHS celebrates its 60th anniversary, a focus on service quality will be essential in delivering 21st century care in the NHS", he said.

"In this new commercial world, where the quality of care given is rewarded financially, marketers in the NHS have a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate the enormous contribution they can make to improving patient experiences and providing what patients truly want".

The Institute's recently published White Paper on marketing in the NHS outlined the benefits of a marketing approach and the vital role marketing has to play in driving up standards of care within the NHS.

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