Book Review: Who cares? The great British health debate
Abstract
BOOK REVIEWS Morgan O 1998: Who cares? The great British health debate. Oxford: Radcliffe Medical. 240 pp. £18.50 (PB). ISBN 1 85775 243 0. We are born into it, it is there throughout out lives and we die in its care. As the National Health Service (NHS) passes its fiftieth birthday, this book looks behind the headlines and explains what has happened to the British health service and what future waits in store. The author claims that the time for a fundamental debate on the future of the NHS has come and he asks the following questions: · The most recent NHS reforms, the internal market, will be replaced, but by what? · Can the system be made more accountable? How can the balance of know- ledge be shifted towards the patient? · Is the NHS underfunded? Should some elements of NHS activity be charged to patients? · Will the British public agree on 'what is an illness'? Can this lead to rational rationing? · Can the relationship between public and private sectors be made to work? Morgan, who is an author and a journalist, takes the reader back to 1948 to give an overview of the first