ABSTRACT
This chapter examines exogenous to the National Health Service (NHS), there were the changes in the political environment and administrative styles. It explores endogenous to the NHS, there was the gradual creation of a consensus among professionals and others about the need to create a new hospital system. The politics of administering the status quo gave way to the politics of technocratic change. The NHS provides a case study of the politics of competition, as against the politics of confrontation; with both the main parties competing to establish their claim to be considered the NHS’s best friend. So the 1960s open with new men in the arena of health care policy acting in a new political environment: an essentially optimistic and expansionary environment, strong in the conviction that government action could promote economic growth. Awareness of the perverse financial incentives built into the very conception of the NHS became sharper during the 1960s.
