Purpose – This paper aims to bring greater clarity to the debate on the merits (or demerits) of relative performance evaluation through a broad assessment of current UK National Health Service (NHS) benchmarking. It seeks to examine whether benchmarking is being used dynamically to disseminate...

Recent developments in performance measurement and reporting systems in the UK National Health Service (NHS) have created new challenges in costing health care services. In particular, the introduction of the “National Reference Costing Exercise” (NRCE) has substantively changed the way in...