Centre for Health Economics -
Waiting times for planned healthcare treatments have been slowly increasing in England in the last decade, and increased sharply during the Covid-19 pandemic. One policy to reduce the impact of waiting times on patients’ health is for doctors to prioritise patients according to need. This study uses hospital administrative data in 2015-2021 on hip replacements in England to investigate the extent to which publicly-funded patients with higher need, measured by preoperative health, are prioritised on the list by public and private providers.