Britain’s NHS nightmare: a warning to America


The pioneers of Britain’s welfare state may have had good intentions. By founding the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948, they hoped to improve access to treatment for the poor. But, more than sixty years on, it has become a bureaucratic monster that ranks among the worst-performing health care systems in the developed world.

Richard Wellings was formerly Deputy Research Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs. He was educated at Oxford and the London School of Economics, completing a PhD on transport and environmental policy at the latter in 2004. He joined the Institute in 2006 as Deputy Editorial Director. Richard is the author, co-author or editor of several papers, books and reports, including Towards Better Transport (Policy Exchange, 2008), A Beginner’s Guide to Liberty (Adam Smith Institute, 2009), High Speed 2: The Next Government Project Disaster? (IEA , 2011) and Which Road Ahead - Government or Market? (IEA, 2012). He is a Senior Fellow of the Cobden Centre and the Economic Policy Centre.



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