Demarketing - managing demand in the UK National Health Service

Abstract

This article explores what demarketing (which seeks to dissuade people from using a service) has to offer for the allocation of resources according to patient and population needs in the NHS. The authors argue that to reject demarketing as ethically unacceptable would represent the failure of the marketing discipline to recognize the imperative for such strategies within the health sector It could provide a tool for the new purchasers of health for the community, who have so far been neglected by the marketing discipline. If implemented, demarketing would a demand-side approach to the problem of matching need to resources.