Cash Limits, Hospital Prescribing and Shrinking Medical Jurisdiction

Abstract

Abstract In recent years substantial research effort has been applied to the study of the introduction of accounting logics into medical practice, but little of that effort has been applied to the area of the prescribing of medicines, especially in the hospital setting. This paper uses the sociology of the professions as a lens to analyse how policy and managerial initiatives promoting cost and budgetary concerns have affected medical jurisdiction and prescribing practice within the setting of Scottish acute hospitals. The findings suggest that the introduction of accounting logic is shrinking medical jurisdiction and stratifying the profession within the hospital setting.