This article re-evaluates the gravity of the financial problems facing British voluntary hospitals in the interwar period. A relational database of statistics on hospital provision, finance (at both current and constant prices), and activity is used to derive consistent sets of hospitals for...

This commentary on the Editorial ‘The politics and analytics of health policy’ by Professor Calum Paton focuses on two issues. First, it points to the unclear links between ideas, ideology, values, and discourse and policy, and warns that discourse is often a poor guide to enacted policy....