Privatisation and the Quality of Health-care Services

As social services have a special mission, privatisation of social services should not be approved if it is unable to assure the same or an increased quality of life. Quality of life, of course, does not depend solely on a greater number of services but also and especially on the higher quality of those services. Since higher quality is often one of the motives for the privatisation of health services and as it is also stated as a goal in national documents and health care programmes, the author evaluates the privatisation of health services and its impact on the quality of the health services. She finds users as the most important stakeholders in this evaluation since they experience the entire process of a health service and its outcome. Evaluation is limited to the primary health level of the services of the general physician and dentist.