Decision making in outsourcing support services in The United Kingdom public healthcare

Outsourcing has now become an established trend for many organisations, both in the private and public sectors. The public healthcare sector is not excluded from this. Outsourcing, once used as a means to reduce costs, has now acquired strategic significance in organisations. Very little research has been carried out on the decision making process of outsourcing in the public sector particularly in the healthcare sector. This paper reviews available literature on decision making in outsourcing non-core activities in a number of sectors and attempts to describe the decision making process implicit in procuring support services for the public healthcare sector. The paper also discusses the drivers, advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing. There are various reasons that motivate organisations to outsource their non-core activities. However, the review of the literature revealed that the drivers to outsource differ between the private and public sectors. The persons involved in the decision making process are also considered and suitable candidate activities for outsourcing are also highlighted. A qualitative research approach is proposed with multiple case studies as the research strategy. Semi-structured interviews will be adopted as the main data collection technique for this research