Health care systems everywhere face multiple pressures from changing demography, the rise of non-communicable disease, the growing demand on health services, and limited resources at a time of austerity. Focusing on the British NHS from a political science perspective, this second edition of this best-selling book offers a fresh look at how it is coping with such pressures. The book explores the complexity of health policy and health services, offering a critical perspective on concerns including integrated care, the return of public health to local government and moves to devolve health services to local level. Crucially, it offers a critique of the market-style changes introduced by the Coalition government between 2010 and 2015. Students of health care and health policy, policy-makers and public health and health care professionals will find this lively and accessible reassessment of NHS reforms invaluable.

David Hunter is Professor of Health Policy and Management at Durham University. He has a background in political science, medical sociology and health policy analysis and was previously Professor of Health Policy and Management at Leeds University and Director of the Nuffield Institute for Health. David is a non executive director of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), an honorary member of the Faculty of Public Health, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.