Review

An eye on the capital

London Monitor 1996
Sean Boyle and Richard Hamblin (eds)
King’s Fund, 1996, £9.95

This is the third edition of the King’s Fund’s annual review of the state of health care in London. It begins with a look back over the news stories and key events of 1995, presented as a brief diary of events, before moving on to a review of the current pattern of NHS provision (since the private and voluntary sectors are largely ignored) across the city, identifying persistent problems and likely developments.

There follows a section on the ‘facts and figures’ of London’s health services, covering mainly population, finance and NHS activity. The review concludes with five essays on topical issues with a national, as well as capital, significance, such as the rise in emergency admissions, services for psychiatric emergencies, and a case study of a primary care resource centre.

Overall, this is an excellent review, and makes one wonder whether there ought not to be similar independent bodies producing such overviews of health care in other parts of the country. In particular, the calendar of events is a simple, yet valuable and thought-provoking, way to help refocus attention from immediate problems to underlying trends. This kind of thing could easily be replicated elsewhere.

In places the authors have sacrificed breadth for brevity, and a slim publication such as this must necessarily be selective in the information it presents. On balance, though the picture is a partial and incomplete one, the editors have done a good job of producing a review which is clear and readable — and which deserves to be read.