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The political economy of health care

Where the NHS came from and where it could lead

Julian Tudor Hart author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Bristol University Press

Published:1st Sep '10

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The political economy of health care cover

With a foreword by Tony Benn. Drawing on clinical experience dating from the birth of the NHS in 1948, Julian Tudor Hart, a politically active GP in a Welsh coal mining community, charts the progress of the NHS from its 19th century origins in workers' mutual aid societies, to its current forced return to the market. His starting point is a detailed analysis of how clinical decisions are made. He explores the changing social relationships in the NHS as a gift economy, how these may be affected by reducing care to commodity status, and the new directions they might take if the NHS resumed progress independently from the market. This edition of this bestselling book has been entirely rewritten with two new chapters, and includes new material on resistance to that world-wide process. The essential principle in the book is that patients need to develop as active citizens and co-producers of health gain in a humanising society and the author's aim is to promote it wherever people recognise that pursuit of profit may be a brake on rational progress.

"...deeply practical...heart-warmingly optimistic." Helen Roberts in Public Health Today
"This book is a masterpiece -- a unique combination of fascinating history, top-notch epidemiological science, sharp political analysis, and clinical insight. Scholar and practitioner, both, Julian Tudor Hart's understanding of how we can best pursue health in our communities is second to none." Donald M. Berwick, MD

ISBN: 9781847427823

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

336 pages

Second Edition