The object of this paper is to throw light on an apparent paradox in the financial history of the British National Health Service (NHS) in, broadly, its first decade. After the first two fiscal years of the Service a regime of tight expenditure restraint was imposed. This reflected a perception of NHS spending as excessive and subject to insufficient control.' In the first volume of his officia...

In response to the International Journal of Health Policy and Management (IJHPM)editorial, this commentary adds to the debate about ethical dimensions of compassionate care in UK service provision. It acknowledges the importance of the original paper, and attempts to explore some of the issues that are raised in the context of nursing practice, research and education. It is argued that each of ...

Early in 2004, the British Government announced the award of eight enormous IT contracts with a combined value of more than d6 billion. The companies selected would introduce new IT systems and processes to Europe’s largest public sector organisation, the National Health Service (NHS) in England. The contracts were due to run for 7 years, until December 2010. At the end of June this year, the c...

Declaration of interest None. In the ongoing debate over evidence-based psychiatry, most of the arguments pro and contra have centred around the relevance of this strategy for clinical practice and teaching. In Britain, however, analogous concepts are now being applied to service planning, as part of the government initiative to move health care from a system founded in clinical knowledge and a...

Often Americans, even experienced observers, seem surprised that in the late 1980s the British government decided to make fundamental changes in the British National Health Service (NHS), introducing ideas visibly adapted from the United States. More than 6 years have elapsed since Margaret Thatcher, then prime minister, introduced the Review, which led to these fundamental changes. Now that th...

Reducing undiagnosed and late diagnosed HIV infection in the population remains a public health priority. By the end of 2012, of the estimated 98 400 people living with HIV in the UK, approximately 1 in 3 (31 700) were women of whom about 1 in 4 (7700) were unaware of their infection. There were 842 200 conceptions for women aged 15–44 years in England in 2012; of these, 1 in 5 (21%) resulted i...