Scientific-bureaucratic medicine and U.K. health policy.

One prominent method for controlling health costs is to find measures for the management of demand. Various options exist for this; and many of them have been tried during the fifty years of the UK's National Health Service. Current policy now focuses on what may be called "scientific-bureaucratic medicine." This policy is based on the assumptions that valid medical knowledge is derived from accumulated research evidence and that such knowledge should be implemented through clinical guidelines which are enforced to some extent. This UK development has parallels with the US Agency for Health Care Policy and Research whose experience, therefore, raises some policy issues for the UK. Copyright 2000 by The Policy Studies Organization.