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Seventy years of the British National Health Service: problem, politics and policy streams

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2018

Martin Powell
Martin Powell*
Affiliation:
Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
*
*Correspondence to: Martin Powell, Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham, Park House, 40 Edgbaston Park Road, Birmingham B15 2RT, UK. Email: m.powell@bham.ac.uk
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Abstract

The British National Health Service (NHS) celebrates its 70th birthday on 5 July 2018. This paper examines this anniversary through the lens of previous anniversaries, exploring two strands of political debates and NHS documents. It draws on the basic ‘multiple streams model’ of Kingdon that argues that an issue reaches the agenda when the policy window opens to allow the coupling of three independent streams – policy, problem and politics. It is found that there appears to be some discontinuity in the problem stream; some periods of relative consensus and sharp political differences in the politics stream; and sharp variations over time in the policy stream. While it is clear that there have been both continuities and discontinuities in the problem, politics and policy streams over the past 70 years, they have rarely come together to result in a policy that has taken it off the agenda.

Type
Perspective
Information
Health Economics, Policy and Law , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 29 - 39
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2018 

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