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The article compares the health care system of Great Britain and the U.S. It is based on a series of three British-American medical sociology conferences, the most recent of which was convened in Boston, Massachusetts. It is stated that for most Americans, health care is procured through employer-sponsored group insurance plans. Whereas, in Great Britain medical is governed by the National Health Service (NHS).

Aim To test a priori hypotheses concerning client–treatment matching in the treatment of alcohol problems and to evaluate the more general hypothesis that client–treatment matching adds to the overall effectiveness of treatment. Design Pragmatic, multi-centre, randomized controlled trial (the UK Alcohol Treatment Trial: UKATT) with open follow-up at 3 months after entry and blind follow-up at 12 months. Setting Five treatment centres, comprising seven treatment sites, including National Health Service (NHS), social services and joint NHS/non-statutory facilities. Treatments Motivational enhancement therapy and social behaviour and network therapy. Measurements Matching hypotheses were tested by examining interactions between client attributes and treatment types at both 3 and 12 months follow-up using the outcome variables of percentage days abstinent, drinks per drinking day and scores on the Alcohol Problems Questionnaire and Leeds Dependence Questionnaire. Findings None of five matching hypotheses was confirmed at either follow-up point on any outcome variable. Conclusion The findings strongly support the conclusion reached in Project MATCH in the United States that client–treatment matching, at least of the kind examined, is unlikely to result in substantial improvements to the effectiveness of treatment for alcohol problems. Possible reasons for this failure to support the general matching hypothesis are discussed, as are the implications of UKATT findings for the provision of treatment for alcohol problems in the United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the way the National Health Service (NHS) creates and manages legitimacy in Great Britain. Use of complex processes of human interaction to deliver health care; Performance of managerial duties by doctors; Problem of sourcing, building and maintaining legitimacy in the NHS.

The article discusses the decision of the British government to make fundamental changes in the British National Health Service (NHS), introducing ideas adapted from the U.S. It says that a market system into the supply of free health care for all residents of Great Britain was introduced by the government. It adds that the reconciliation of its own role with the essentially market-driven issues is the fundamental problem struggled by the government. Moreover, the features underlying the NHS are also discussed.

Most governments devote considerable resources to the provision of private goods such as health, housing, and education. Moreover many such schemes are universal in the sense that everyone is eligible and provision is free. In Great Britain, for example, the National Health Service (NHS) offers free health care to all citizens, while; in the U.S. the public school system provides free high school education. The purpose of this article is to point out that such universal provision schemes can redistribute income: from the rich to the poor, even if they are financed by a head tax. The key to this argument is a discrete-choice model between private and public sector consumption in which individuals demand at most one unit of the publicly provided good while caring about its quality. This seems reasonable for a number of cases. Parents want their children to have a high school education, and individuals' health care needs are manifested in the form of a demand for a particular course of treatment. It is typically neither desirable nor even possible for a child to attend two schools at once or for an individual to receive health care from two different sources simultaneously.