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***A Waterstones Best Books of 2022 pick***

‘David Haslam is uniquely placed to reflect on how healthcare has lost its way, what needs to be done to fix it and why all of us are responsible for doing so… The importance and timeliness of his messages shines through.’ Dr Phil Hammond

‘A fascinating and important book.’ Dr Amanda Brown

With a single drug in the UK currently costing GBP340,000 per patient per year, or a gene therapy in the USA being costed at $1.2million, who should get such treatments, and how can we begin to afford them? Should we all be entitled to timely mental health therapy? How should we care for our old?

As we grapple with the world’s worst pandemic for a century, our minds are on our health more than ever. But what should we rightfully expect of doctors? In this original and thought-provoking book, Sir David Haslam explores what good healthcare should achieve and asks how we pay for it. Informed by patient stories and data from across the world – from US big pharma to Britain’s NHS – this is an urgent and often moving examination of our most important asset: our health.

Publisher Review

A superb analysis of the thorny, intractable, endlessly sidestepped issues that bedevil 21st-century healthcare... It is genuinely exhilarating to read a proper, heavyweight analysis framed in prose as blunt, on point and devoid of spin as Haslam's.... This brilliant book offers no glib solutions, only thoughtful suggestions, but the questions it poses are electrifying. * Observer * David Haslam is uniquely placed to reflect on how healthcare has lost its way, what needs to be done to fix it and why all of us are responsible for doing so... The importance and timeliness of his messages shines through. -- Dr Phil Hammond, author of Dr Hammond's Covid Casebook A fascinating and important book. -- Dr Amanda Brown, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Prison Doctor Compelling... Refreshing * Guardian * It is hard to think of anyone more qualified to reflect on all aspects of health and healthcare than David Haslam... Clear and accessible. -- Professor Sir Michael Marmot, author of The Health Gap This insightful, extensively referenced work has taken the hugely complex challenges of the provision of universal state-funded healthcare in a sustainable way and unpicked them thoughtfully... I was absorbed from the outset. -- Professor Dame Helen Stokes-Lampard, Chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges A must-read for all who care about the nation's health and our healthcare. -- Professor Martin Marshall, Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners