How successful has the Scottish Health Service been in modifying social inequalities in Scotland?
… Scotland has remained a poorer and less healthy society than England during the course of the twentieth century.2 In the past Scotland’s National Health Service budget per head has been considerably higher than that of England and Wales. Yet despite the greater expenditure on healthcare and resources, the Scottish people’s historical health records are extremely poor in comparison to South of the border, with their English counterparts experiencing far healthier and longer lives. At present, as Scotland now enters into the opening stages of the twenty-first century it is becoming apparent that this impoverished unhealthy trend is not exclusive to the previous century, but also very much a feature of the current one.3 The continuation of the poverty gap between England and Scotland is partly due to the cruel cycle which poverty creates. For once a nation or indeed an individual enters into this vicious spiral of deprivation escapism is …
