This book is about geographical variation in the organisation, provision and use of health services in Britain. Its main theme is that neither the quantity nor the quality of health care provided by the National Health Service (NHS) is uniform from place to place. Chapters discuss and evaluate:

• The reorganisation of the NHS in the years up to 1987
• The relationships between the need for health care and the supply of health services
• The redistribution of health service resources geographically
• The distribution of doctors, dentists, community nurses and hospitals across the UK
• Access to health services
• The distribution of both private health facilities and social welfare services and their effect on the NHS.