Future health scenarios—Strategic issues for the British health service

Abstract The health service in the United Kingdom, along with that of most other industrialized countries, is beginning to come to grips with a series of powerful forces for change. This article summarizes those forces, and then describes a recent strategic exercise which explored their likely implications. This leads to a re-appraisal of the current delivery and organization of services and then suggests a set of key strategic issues for the health service. It ends by re-examining the role of health services in delivering better health .