At last, a coherent alternative to the healthcare agenda promoted by all political parties! A distinguished general practitioner draws on erudite sources and vivid personal experience to analyse British healthcare. The core principle of the National Health Service (NHS), he argues, is an exponentially expanding knowledge base, which has been translated to benefit everyone within a framework of consensus and solidarity (despite the odd greedy doctor or patient). The NHS transformed British hospitals “by distributing medical labour away … from university cities to provide all … specialty functions everywhere in Britain”. Will profit-driven multinationals (which are substantially more expensive to administer than state-run healthcare) ensure …