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. 2022 Oct;52(4):470-479.
doi: 10.1177/00207314221114540. Epub 2022 Jul 25.

Dismantling the National Health Service in England

Peter Roderick  1 , Allyson M Pollock  1
Affiliations

Dismantling the National Health Service in England

Peter Roderick et al. Int J Health Serv. 2022 Oct.

Abstract

The National Health Service was established in the United Kingdom in 1948 as a universal, comprehensive service free at the point of delivery, which is publicly provided, funded, and accountable. Market incrementalism in England has eroded this system over three decades. The recently enacted Health and Care Act will erode it further. This article first explains briefly how legislation and policy initiatives in 1990, 2003, and 2012 furthered development of the market and private provision of health services, and then describes the main structural changes in the new Act and their implications. England is now moving decisively toward a marketized, two-tier, mixed-funding system with several similarities to the United States.

Keywords: Health and Care Act 2022; National Health Service England; health policy; health services; marketization; privatisation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

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