Post-Fordism and Welfare: An Analysis of Change in the British Health Sector

In this paper I consider the relevance of commentaries on the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism and specifically their applicability to the welfare state. I suggest that some such commentaries have identified interesting parallels without providing much original analysis of why the putative transitions have come about. I also note various trends in the British health sector, which cannot be explained solely by reference to changes in the production process. Then, events in the British health sector since 1979 are considered in terms of the extent to which they can be interpreted in terms of a putative transition from Fordism to post-Fordism. This is divided into two sections. In the first, measures taken between 1979 and the National Health Service (NHS) reforms are examined, and it is argued that numerous measures taken prior to the NHS reforms failed to resolve some of the perceived crises of the NHS. The NHS reforms implemented from 1991 are then discussed and a number of problems are identified with these reforms, which highlight the difficulties of implementing a neoliberal reform strategy in the context of the British NHS. In particular the political conditions have yet to be established which might facilitate the wider extension of such a strategy, though this does not rule out changes that might restrict the scope of the NHS.