Publisher's Synopsis
Over the last decade, both New Labour and Tory governments have attempted to dismantle the National Health Service, in an ideological assault. Since its foundation in 1946, the NHS has been at the center of the welfare state, but now it lies in tatters, the result of cost cutting and exposure to the free market in the false pursuit of efficiencies and savings. Today, while the politicians claim that they are responding to the problem, the news is dominated by stories of A. and E. departments stretched to the limit, the collapse of care, junior doctors striking for fair pay, and a crisis in mental health.
In The End of the NHS Allyson M. Pollock, one of the nation's leading public health specialists, exposes the truth behind the botched policies and underhand politics that has seen the rampant privatisation of a universal healthcare system. Post Brexit the system will be under ever more threats from market forces. In response, she show that the NHS has to modernise but makes a passionate defence of a health service for all, free at the point of delivery.