ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on recent changes in the private sector and its links to the National Health Service (NHS). British private medicine is tiny in proportion to the NHS, and the image of private sector growth and public sector decline is misleading. British private medicine should not, however, be dismissed too lightly. It should not be judged merely by the number of hospitals, one reason being that it is only recently that private work has been of more significance outside the public sector than within it. The private sector possesses a growing political significance that represents a dilemma for each of the major political parties. Consultants are the elite grade of the British medical profession, in what is traditionally a very hierarchical medical care system. The Government's initial approach to privatization in response to adverse publicity has been for its policies to be determined in a more piecemeal manner.
