[rjmunro]

The NHS is known for being pretty efficient when compared to other healthcare systems, especially the US. The problem is that there is no money and healthcare is getting more expensive.

There are incentives for high performance and efficiency. GPs are private partnerships contracted to treat patients. They can keep profits.

There's been attempts to do more private outsourcing (with the NHS still paying), but they tend to work out less efficient when you consider the whole system, because, for example they might only treat the easy cases and leave the hard ones to the normal hospitals.