ABSTRACT
The National Health Service (NHS) provides a comprehensive service to the whole population at a relatively low cost. It is mainly financed from taxation and is substantially free at the point of delivery. Compared with many health systems, access to services is more socially equitable. The NHS has had popular support and, in the 1940s, was seen as a central plank of the collectivist welfare state. In 1944, Henry Willink, the Conservative Minister of Health, described the health proposals as representing the: “very root of national vigour and national enterprise…the biggest single advance ever made in this country in the sphere of public health” (Webster 1988). In the 1992 election campaign, all the major political parties claimed to be guardians of the principles of the NHS.
