Developing a market orientation in the Health Service: a survey of acute NHS Trusts in Scotland

Argues that the introduction of the quasi market mechanism into the Health Service has required that managers within NHS trusts acquire new managerial skills relating to market operations and, more importantly, reorientate their organizations towards the marketplace. Examines the pattern of development which has occurred within acute trusts across Scotland in the past three years, and argues that managers in the majority of trusts have developed a remarkably robust and relevant conceptualization of the nature and application of marketing within the NHS, reflecting the difficulties managers have faced in selling the concept of marketing to a generally sceptical body of clinicians. Notes, in part owing to such professional scepticism, that the development of marketing as an implementable approach to operations has lagged significantly behind the managerial conceptualization, although this cannot be attributed solely to resistance from clinicians and other health care professionals. Rather, suggests that such limited progress in implementing a market orientation reflects a range of “structural” barriers, both within individual trusts and the specific market environment faced by trusts.