The Cost of the National Health Service in England and Wales

This detailed analysis emphasizing trends in the cost of Britain's National Health Service since its inception in 1948 was originally presented as a technical memorandum to the Guillabaud committee, appointed by the Minister of Health to review past and future costs of the health service and to make appropriate recommendations. As a basis for its report ( which has since been issued) the Guillabaud committee requested the National Institute of Economic and Social Research to prepare a cost analysis. The authors do not attempt to discuss the broader social and economic issues involved in the National Health Service, but rather they restrict themselves to a study of the cost of the various components of the health service in England and Wales (excluding Scotland) between July, 1948, and March, 1954. No comparison is made with the cost of medical care before the health service was inaugurated. The chief sources from which the