The UK National Health Service (NHS) was established in 1948 as a universal service free at the point of delivery and available on the basis of need. This system replaced a fragmented, highly inequitable provision based on a system of charity, municipalities, and private services. This resulted in considerable divergence between health care policy and … Continue reading
Thank you for joining our debate last night (17 January) and we hope you enjoyed the discussion. It was good to have such large number of participants from so many countries take part in the debate. Below is the summary of the debate and we hope to see you Tuesday (24 January) next week at … Continue reading
The last year has seen some major changes in partnerships between health and social care. At one end of the spectrum social service departments are pulling out of agreements with mental health trusts and at the other end social service departments are setting up new partnership agreements. The latest of the new partnerships is in … Continue reading
The Western health care system is broken. The ways in which it is broken and the degree to which it is broken vary from country to country (and within countries), but the reality remains that costs continue to rise and people continue to receive care that is fragmented, incomplete, and sometimes inappropriate. And in some … Continue reading
Oh the horror….the horror….I only have to hear the merest muted whisper of the word ‘integration’ and the toe-curling, seat-wriggling, cold-sweat-inducing memory just bursts back in all its shameful splendour. We shall call it ‘the integration episode’. It is 1998, a scorching hot day, and I am on a Q&A platform at the culmination of … Continue reading
