Health services research in Great Britain.

The Health Services Research Study Section of the Bureau of Health Services has for some years been concerned with improving the quality and quantity of health services research in the United States. The present survey of health services research in the United Kingdom was planned in 1963 with that basic purpose, as were the previously published Scandinavian study and the series of commissioned papers on needed research into the American system.' The National Health Service of the United Kingdom, representing as it does a national commitment to provide uniform and universally available services, appears to provide a unique environment for health services research; an environment decidedly different from that of the United States, where administrative responsibility and sources of money remain highly diversified and decentralized. A survey seemed particularly appropriate at this point in time when regional and statewide planning, aimed at achieving more general availability of services and reducing wastage of scarce resources, is being encouraged in the United States on an unprecedented scale, offering equally unprecedented needs and opportunities for studies in all aspects of medical care. The study team was composed of three members of the Health