HEALTH-CARE REFORM IN THE UK - UNREALISTIC OR BROKEN PROMISES TO OLDER CITIZENS

For 50 years the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK has been chan ging in response to economic, political and social pressures. In 1980 the pace of change increased, culminating in fundamental reforms to th e provision of health and social care in the 1990 NHS and Community Ca re Act. Cost containment underpinned the rationale for the changes but inefficiency and bureaucratic waste was blamed by the New Right polit ical elite. The reforms represented an attack on medical power which w as curtailed by the introduction of the internal market and the clonin g of business methods. This article explores the context in which thes e reforms were engineered and reports the implications for older peopl e who were led to believe that the Welfare State would support them in later life.