ABSTRACT
This Introduction present an overview of key concept discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book reviews the NHS over its first 30 years of existence. The history of the National Health Service (NHS) is dominated by five themes, efficiency, equity, community care, organisational reform and improving the health status of the population. The pre-NHS mix of voluntary and state institutions had also involved major issues of equity of access to health care and the standard of health care received between social groups, regions and categories of health care. In the nineteenth century, there was investment in various forms of institutional care but before the establishment of the NHS there was also a growing interest in various forms of less institutional and community health care. The organisational and administrative details of the NHS had been the subject of considerable conflict in the period leading up to the establishment of the Service.
