Mutualism and health care Hospital contributory schemes in twentieth-century Britain
Mutualism and health care presents the first comprehensive account of a major innovation in hospital funding before the NHS. The voluntary hospitals, which provided the bulk of Britain?s acute hospital services, diversified their financial base by establishing hospital contributory schemes. Through these, working people subscribed small, regular amounts to their local hospitals, in return for which they were eligible for free hospital care. Mutualism and health care evaluates the extent to which the schemes were successful in achieving comprehensive coverage of the population, funding hospital
1 Online-Ressource (256 pages)
9781847792167, 1847792162
1148859913
1. Introduction2. The emergence of hospital contributory schemes3. Mass contribution and hospital finance in inter-war Britain4. The geography of hospital contributory schemes: membership, reciprocity and integration5. Hospital contribution and civil society: humanity not democracy?6. Contributory schemes, workmen governors and local control of hospital policy7. The 'impending cataclysm': the state and hospital contribution, 1941-19468. The contributory schemes and the coming of the NHS9. ‘Where the shoe pinches’: reorientation under the NHS10. The health cash plans and the new mutualism in health care11. Concluding comments -- .
Includes bibliographical references and index