It may seem as if the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has always been part of the UK’s health and social care landscape. But this fascinating book charts the evolution of NICE from its origins 25 years ago, as well as how this development illustrates many of the key themes effecting health care today.

In a period of rapid medical and technological advance, NICE has been both a gatekeeper to ensure that health care resources are spent where they are needed most, and a promoter of patient access to the best new technologies. Through a detailed history, the authors show how NICE’s remit grew from health care to public health to social care, advancing the use of evidence-based policy making and health economics as it did so. Playing a key role in ethical debates which often made the news, NICE also re-aligned the relationship between patients, politicians and the pharmaceutical industry.

Written by two of the leading scholars in the field, this fascinating history also situates NICE in an international context, where it is often seen as a model to follow. It will be key reading for students and researchers in the fields of health and social care and health policy, as well as professionals and interested general readers.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Paul Atkinson is Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Public Health, Policy and Systems at the University of Liverpool. He is a historian with an interest in health policy and the use of evidence for policy.

Sally Sheard is Executive Dean of the Institute of Population Health, and Andrew Geddes and John Rankin Professor of Modern History, at the University of Liverpool. She is a health policy historian and analyst with an interest in the interface between expert advisers and policymakers.