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Four Beveridge’s giant of disease: from negative to positive welfare?

  • Martin Powell
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Social Policy Review 21
This chapter is in the book Social Policy Review 21

Abstract

This chapter discusses the way in which the foundation and development of the National Health Service can be seen as an example of a shift from negative (reactive) to positive (proactive) welfare. It observes that policy makers and practitioners have themselves taken the opportunity of the sixtieth anniversary of the foundation of the NHS to review the organisation in the light of the contemporary challenges it faces: these reviews have been mixed in their conclusions about the success in moving from a national ‘sickness’ service to one that genuinely promotes and provides ‘health’ to its citizens.

Abstract

This chapter discusses the way in which the foundation and development of the National Health Service can be seen as an example of a shift from negative (reactive) to positive (proactive) welfare. It observes that policy makers and practitioners have themselves taken the opportunity of the sixtieth anniversary of the foundation of the NHS to review the organisation in the light of the contemporary challenges it faces: these reviews have been mixed in their conclusions about the success in moving from a national ‘sickness’ service to one that genuinely promotes and provides ‘health’ to its citizens.

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