It has been argued repeatedly that British health policy in the 1990s had a number of similarities with that of the 1930s. This article, while accepting that a comparison of these two periods may be useful, argues that comparing policy in the 1950s with that in the 1980s and 1990s is even more illuminating. To demonstrate this the author outlines first the similarities in policy between the early and later periods, then the differences, and the events that led to each. These comparisons suggest that there is evidence of path dependency in British health policy, and although the United Kingdom appeared to break away from the policy path for a short time in the late 1980s, the changes proposed then do not appear to have been as radical as first suggested. Many of the issues highlighted in the 1950s seem to remain unresolved today.
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