'The essence of a satisfactory health service is that the rich and poor are treated alike, that poverty is not a disability and wealth is not advantaged.' To what extent has Bevan's vision for the British national health service been realised?

... 'The essence of a satisfactory health service is that the rich and poor are treated alike, that poverty is not a disability and wealth is not advantaged.' To what extent has Bevan's vision for the British national health service been realised? "Inequality in health is the worst inequality of all. There is no more serious inequality than knowing that you'll die sooner because you're badly off." (Frank Dobson/DoH, 1997 cited in Shaw et al, 1999) "Geographical inequalities have continued to grow... the worse off tenth of the population are 2.08 times more likely to die before age 65 than the best off tenth." (Shaw et al., 2001) A long history of analysis of health inequalities has continually stressed the role of socio-economic circumstances and location as causal factors (DOH, 2001). The sense of social injustice stirred by the link between poverty and ill health was a strong factor in the establishment of the NHS

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