From commodification to entrepreneurialism: how commercial income is transforming the English NHS

Commodification of health services involves objects that can be traded—private patients’ facilities, treatments for international patients and the development of joint ventures and trading entities. This article explores the extent to which the NHS in England is becoming more commercial in its aims and practices, and how this is being justified. The authors focus on the commercial income of six NHS trusts who are thought to be at the forefront of this development. The income the trusts are generating is examined using the lens of competing institutional logics and of Polanyi’s ‘double movement’ thesis.