ABSTRACT
Ask people in the UK about the NHS in the abstract, and many will tell you that it is a wonderful institution, the envy of the world. Ask them about their own real life experiences, or those of their family and friends, and their enthusiasm becomes more measured. Ask those people who have experience of both the NHS and various overseas systems of health care delivery (including foreigners’ views) and the envy is simply not in evidence. People in certain other countries believe they now manage these things decidedly better than we do.
