Written by distinguished doctor and author Julian Tudor Hart, this is a passionate, polemical book on the historical development, current state, and potential future shape of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). Drawing on many years of clinical experience, the author explores how the NHS might be reconstituted as a humane service for all, rather than a profitable one for the few, and as a civilizing influence on society as a whole. The book’s starting point is an attack on the creeping commercialization of the health service, which involves the privatization of a growing number of spheres and the application of market economics to procurement, delivery, and management. Combining clinical, political, and economic arguments, the author then proposes his own economic analysis of the NHS, derived not from classical theory but from experience of the real health care economy. The Political Economy of Health Care will inspire students, academics, health professionals, and NHS users to challenge received wisdoms about how the NHS should develop in the twenty-first century. --- from the publisher |
