Concern raised over the impact of mental health clusters in PBR

Mental health clusters as they are currently proposed could hamper innovation and lead to competition based on costs and not quality. Alison Rose-Quirrie, chief executive of Care UK, speaking at the Laing & Buisson Investing in Healthcare conference in October voiced concerns about the way mental health clusters are set to operate when they are rolled out in December. Ms Rose-Quirrie said: If you are looking at an outcome-based strategy you should not dictate the inputs. It should be down to the service provider what to do for a particular patient.Dictating inputs left no room for innovation in the sector and meant that providers would be forced to compete on price rather than quality’.