ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a less celebratory, and therefore more balanced, summary account of the achievements and weaknesses of the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland, and especially in Glasgow and the West of Scotland. The NHS has operated under severe budgetary constraints ever since. This has been particularly true of the capital budget and this in turn has served to make conflicts between particular parts of the NHS acute. On the basis that a healthier population would need fewer hospitals, Governments were reluctant to provide the infant NHS with an adequate capital budget. The NHS simultaneously reduced the number of patients willing to pay and created full-time jobs for consultants. The NHS funded regional specialist centres like Canniesburn Hospital where major advances in plastic surgery were pioneered and doctors from across the Commonwealth came to study. International comparisons show that the NHS offers good value for money.
