Description
Book SynopsisThis book contends that attempts to reform the NHS can only be understood by reference to both the wider social and political context, and to the organisational and ideational legacies present within the NHS itself. It aims to take students beyond a basic understanding of the historical development of health policy in the UK, to one that demonstrates an appreciation of the interactions between health policy, organisation and society. Continuity and change in the NHS: · acts as a crucial bridge between conventional textbooks on the NHS and contemporary health policy research; · provides a theoretically rigorous but accessible account of the development of policy and organisational change not found elsewhere; · presents new scholarship in the political economy of welfare in a clear format. The book is aimed at third year and post-graduate students of politics, public management and health studies. It provides a theoretically inspired account of the development of health policy and organisation in the UK which will also be of interest to academics and researchers in the field.
Trade Review'...a very welcome addition to the range of thorough research that is now building around health care policy, organisation and management...This is the book I have been waiting for.' Sociology of Health and Illness
Table of ContentsContents: Theory, history and health policy, and organisation; The creation of the NHS; The 1950s: 'golden age' or the NHS under threat?; The 1960s and the changing balance of professional power; Reforming healthcare in the 1960s and the 1970s; The political economy and changing ideology of healthcare; policy in the 1970s; The internal market reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, Continuous revolution? Health policy under New Labour; Long-range explanations of health policy change; Future directions and conclusion.
