Fairness in the Nhs: Towards a Fairer Future for the National Health Service

This book is for everyone who is concerned about the successful future of a very special institution - the National Health Service (NHS). It provides the reader with an overview of the complexity of healthcare delivery, and the crucial influence that fairness should have on healthcare planning. The National Health Service Act was approved by Clement Attlee’s Labour Government on 5 July 1948. It was created in a great post-war spirit of community with the aim of providing free care at the point of need for everyone, rich or poor. However, right from the start the NHS has faced issues in tackling the challenges that arise in trying to be fair, and of how greater equity in healthcare can be achieved.

The focus is on issues of fairness and equity in healthcare in the NHS, what fairness and equity mean both generally and in the organisational context. It begins with chapters on the inequalities that exist in UK healthcare delivery today. Then a series of chapters focuses on different elements of fairness in healthcare: governance, policy, and leadership; finance and financing; healthcare delivery; the key behaviours required of those working in the NHS and importantly, the patient perspectives.

The conclusions and recommendations will be of great interest to health and social care practice staff, health and social care managers and leaders, politicians and policy makers, health and social care specialists, operational managers within the system, NHS boards and healthcare governors, integrated care providers, primary, continuity and specialist providers, and charities in the healthcare sector. It will also be of interest to academics and others involved in training, research and development, students studying health, social care, and management and to the wider public: to everyone who is concerned about the successful future of a very special institution - the National Health Service.

Mike Thomas is the Chair of University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, Chair of the Lancashire and South Cumbria Provider Collaborative Board, and Chair of the mental health and learning disability charity, Making Space.

Gay Haskins is former Dean of Executive Education of London Business School and Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and co-author, with Mike Thomas and Lalit Johri of Kindness in Leadership, Routledge, 2018.