Synopses & Reviews
Review
"It should be required reading for everyone who works in the biggest industry in the country and everyone that uses it. You will learn things about the NHS that you never knew and ought to." Claire Rayner
Review
"Pollock offers a critical contribution to the key issues in contemporary political and policy debate: the role of choice, competition and private provision in health system reform." James Johnson, British Medical Association
Review
"Allyson Pollock;s criticism of those who have promoted health care as a commodity, to be sold for private profit, is based partly on the moral importance of social solidarity and shared risk in providing for health care. But it is also based on economic analyses that lay bare the gross inefficiencies of markets in health and social care. If 'what matters is what works', this book makes clear that health care markets can not serve the British people well." Sir Iain Chalmers, Editor, James Lind Library
Review
"This is a shocking story, brilliantly told, by one of the leading thinkers in the field of public health policy. Here you will learn how the NHS, for decades vandalised by the Tories, is now being destroyed by Labour policies and politicians who, with their cronies from the private sector, are turning this magnificent institution into on the greatest pork barrels of all time." Raymond Tallis, author of Hippocratic Oaths, Medicine and its Discontents
Synopsis
An analysis of the transition from universal, publicly funded health care to New Labour's application of market principles: a national institution reaching crisis point and a key lesson for those concerned with health care everywhere.
About the Author
Allyson Pollock is Professor of Health Policy and Health Services Research at University College London. A public health doctor, she researches and publishes widely on health policy issues and is a frequent contributor to radio and television discussions.
Colin Leys is Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at Queen’s University, Canada. His previous books include Politics in Britain, The Rise and Fall of Development Theory and, with Leo Panitch, The End of Parliamentary Socialism.