Challenges of payment-for-performance in health care and other public services – design, implementation and evaluation

Interest in mechanisms linking varying proportions of provider payments to achieving certain performance targets has recently grown in health care and other public services in an attempt to solve the cost-quality conundrum. Against the backdrop of this enthusiasm, it is important to review the challenges posed in the process of designing, implementing and evaluating of pay-for-performance (P4P) in health care and in other UK public services.