The paying patient: Customer or commodity surveying private nursing homes for the elderly

One of the arguments advanced by the proponents of private care is that by purchasing care, consumers gain more control over the service they receive than their counterparts in the NHS and that furthermore, unlike NHS patients, they have the ultimate sanction of the withdrawal of their custom if the care being delivered is not up to the required standard. Against this argument is the view that in the case of nursing home care for the elderly, the clientele are likely to be so frail and demand for places is so substantial, that the supposed merits of private provision - control and choice - simply do not exist (Harris and Seldon, 1979; Knapp, 1984; Grant, 1985). Research into private nursing home care being conducted at the University of Bath is beginning to shed some light on this debate. It seems that both sides are to some degree correct but that the environment of care is very much more complicated than has hitherto been recognised.