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The 1974 reorganization of the British National Health Service: An analysis

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Abstract

The British National Health Service was reorganized on April 1, 1974, for the first time since its formation in 1948. The Reorganization attacked one serious problem: the anomalous separation of the general practitioners (and other nonhospital, non-local authority ambulatory services), hospitals, local government authority public health services, and teaching hospitals into different administrative units with different boundaries. These services are now integrated into one structure. However, other important problems will not be affected substantially.

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Authors
  1. Steven Jonas M.D.
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  2. David Banta M.D., M.P.H.
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Additional information

Dr. Jonas is Associate Professor of Community Medicine in the Health Sciences Center, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York 11794. Dr. Banta is Associate Professor of Community Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine of the City University of New York and Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow in the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. An earlier version of this paper was presented by Dr. Jonas at the American Public Health Association annual meeting, San Francisco, California, November 8, 1973. Dr. Banta is grateful to the Milbank Memorial Fund, whose support made possible visits to Britain in 1970, 1971, and 1974. The authors would like to thank Drs. Brian Abel-Smith, Peter Draper, Geoffrey Gibson, Wilfred Harding, David Stark Murray, and Julian Tudor-Hart for the helpful comments they made on the earlier paper by Dr. Jonas and also Dr. John Brotherston for his contributions to this work.

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Jonas, S., Banta, D. The 1974 reorganization of the British National Health Service: An analysis. J Community Health 1, 91–105 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01319203

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