Broadcasting and the NHS in the Thatcherite 1980s: the challenge to public service

Abstract

"Broadcasting and the NHS in the Thatcherite 1980s takes the two key services, broadcasting and the NHS, and traces the heated debates and political pressures that radically transformed them both. It points to the parallels between them, and describes issues of health, sickness and the provision of medical care as they were reflected in the radio and television output. Across a wide range of programming, from popular drama to investigative journalism, the book captures the mood of the decade as it dissects the politics of the NHS, from the Winter of Discontent to the Aids crisis; and the politics of broadcasting, from the coming of Channel Four to the to the increasing government attacks on the BBC. Concluding in 1990 with two pivotal Acts of Parliament, Patricia Holland traces the roots of the present crisis in public services"--