This is an insider's account of the NHS reforms, tracing the events which led to Mrs Thatcher's secret review of the NHS; the doctor's violent opposition to the resolution; the attempts to persuade Kenneth Clarke, William Waldegrave, Virginia Bottomely, John Major and other ministers that the introduction of market principles into healthcare was doomed to prove an expensive failure; and the steady erosion of the best features of the NHS brought about by its commercialization.