The Twilight of the British Public Health System?

Abstract

Less than two years after the fall of Nazi Germany, a bankrupt Britain—reeling from the most destructive war in history and living under conditions of stark austerity—elected to create an extraordinary system of universal health care, the National Health Service (NHS). Aneurin Bevan, the Labour Party minister of health who played a crucial role in its creation, famously remarked that the NHS would “last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.” Subsequent developments, it seems, have put his challenge to the test.