Assaults on health

Reform of the NHS

“…4. Assaults on health are increasing [18]. Callahan included infectious diseases and obesity in his list of five "horsemen" riding to bring calamity to the world [19].…”

“…The Soviet Union, under the aegis of Health Commissar Nikolai Shemashko, created a system of universal healthcare very like the NHS [33,34], which may have been, to some extent at least, modeled on the Soviet system [35]. 18 After World War II the new socialist republics of eastern Europe adopted similar systems, some features of which have been retained to this day. The Soviet system put heavy emphasis on health centres (called polyclinics), which were also envisaged in the NHS ("The third instrument to which the health services are to be articulated is the health centre," said Bevan [23], "to which we attach very great importance indeed").…”