ABSTRACT
The United Kingdom (UK) health care system is dominated by the National Health Service (NHS), which was established in 1948. It remains a publicly financed and largely publicly provided health care system, giving universal coverage for the population with a zero price at the point of consumption for the majority of treatment. The use of prospective global budgets and a single (tax) "pipe" of finance has facilitated cost containment and the control of providerinduced expenditure inflation.
