The politics of health: taking the long view on the state of the NHS

The NHS never seems to be out of the news. Currently, the sense of a crumbling, deteriorating system is almost palpable, whether it is broken budgets, hospitals in special measures, staffing issues, low morale, or lengthening waiting times. Here, David Hunter argues that we must acknowledge that the real debate is political, not technical, revolving around the erosion of the public realm and rise of the ‘market state’.