The Politics of Health Policy Reform in the UK: Englands Permanent Revolution [Hardcover]

This book explains  the politics of thirty years of market reform in the English NHS, with the rest of the UK a counter-factual. Paton shows how each subsequent reform has been shaped by the confusion left by the previous reform. The long-term ideology has been anti-statist but policy-making at each stage of reform has been driven by short-term politics. The outcome in England has been ever-increasing complexity in the NHS, with significantly increased management costs and no commensurate benefit.

Introduction.- Chapter 1. The politics behind the Conservatives' 'internal market' in the 1990s.- Chapter 2. The changing politics of New Labour.- Chapter 3. Political explanation of Labour's 'initiative-itis'.- Chapter 4. England in a UK context: diversity of governance.- Chapter 5. From New Labour's end-game to Coalition re-invention of the wheel.- Chapter 6. From the 2010 White paper to the 2012 Health and Social Care Act.- Chapter 7. Summative political explanation: NHS 'reform' over 30 years.- Chapter 8. Garbage can politics yet neo-liberal ideology.- Chapter 9. The cost of the market: the price of ideology.- Chapter 10 Diagnosis, prognosis and prescription: will England join the UK?.

Calum Paton is Emeritus Professor of Public Policy at Keele University, UK. His books include seminal analyses of the Thatcher and Blair reforms to the NHS. He is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Health Planning and Management. He was Chair of the University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust from 2000 to 2006, and has advised politicians in the UK, governments abroad and agencies such as WHO, World Bank, UNDP, and the EU.  

Calum Paton has long been one of our most insightful health academics. Rigorous in his approach, he has never been afraid to swim against the ever shifting tides of received opinion. His latest book which is the culmination of decades of analysis of the impact of politicl³