The new head of the United Kingdom’s Dept. of Health proposed sweeping changes to the country’s National Health Service.
Health secretary Andrew Lansley released a whitepaper detailing an overhaul of the British national health system that the Guardian newspaper called "the biggest shakeup of the NHS in a generation."
The U.K.’s new coalition government is struggling with diminished public finances and, like the U.S., rising healthcare costs. The country wants to shift its nationalized healthcare system to a market-driven model that would cut or redeploy up to 30,000 workers in its bureaucracy. The plan would allow struggling hospitals to fail altogether and give the country’s general practitioners £80 billion to treat patients. The plan would also enable patients to be more selective about their care and eliminate a cap on the amount of private income hospitals are allowed to receive, freeing them to lure wealthier patients for specialized surgery, the Guardian reported.
