Ann Oakley is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the UCL Social Research Institute. Jonathan Barker directed the Age Concern Research Unit from 1979 to 1986, co-founded the Institute of Gerontology at King’s College and now directs Far-sight Research.

• Introduction Ann Oakley and Jonathan Barker; Prologue: The experience of being a patient; PART One: Social medicine and social inequality Commentaries by Mike Wadsworth and Jerry Morris; Infant mortality; The social disease of juvenile rheumatism; Health and social change: the example of rheumatic heart disease; War and disease; PART Two: On the National Health Service Commentary by John Ashton; Towards a national hospital service; The policy background; The structure of the NHS in England; The NHS and general practice; The ethics and economics of medical care; PART Three: The sociology of health care Commentary by ????; Medical behaviour, science and the NHS; The hospital and its patients; 'Therapeutic' drugs; Planning for ageing and the health and welfare services; PART Four: Health, values and social policy Commentary by Julian Le Grand; Choice and the welfare state; The gift of blood; Doctors and 'socialised medicine'; Medical ethics and social change in developing societies; Health and the welfare state. Postscript: Richard Titmuss's contribution to the sociology of health and illness Raymond Illsley.

"With the NHS undergoing the most fundamental change in its 56 year history, this book is a timely reminder of important policy dilemmas that we ignore at our peril. This collection of Titmuss's writings brings together remarkably prescient commentaries on aspects of health, health care, and the NHS." British Medical Journal