Not What The Bus Promised

What does the UK's exit from the EU mean for health and the NHS?
This book explains the legal and practical implications of Brexit on the NHS: its staffing; especially on the island of Ireland; medicines, medical devices and equipment; and biomedical research. It considers the UK's post-Brexit trade agreements and what they mean for health, and discusses the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on post-Brexit health law.
To put the legal analysis in context, the book draws on over 400 conversations the authors had with people in the north of England and Northern Ireland, interviews with over 40 health policy stakeholders, details of a film about their research made with ShoutOut UK, the authors' work with Parliaments and governments across the UK, and their collaborations with key actors like the NHS Confederation, the British Medical Association, and Cancer Research UK. The book shows that the language people use to talk about hoped-for legitimate post-Brexit health governance suggests a great deal of faith in law and legal process among 'ordinary people', but the opposite from 'insider elites'.
Not What The Bus Promised puts the authors' knowledge and experiences centre frame, rather than claiming to express 'objective reality'. It will be of interest to any reader who cares about the NHS and wants to understand its present and future.

Tamara K Hervey is Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law at City, University of London, UK.
Ivanka Antova was Research Fellow on the HGAB Project, UK.
Mark L Flear is Professor of Law and Socio-Legal Studies at Queen's University Belfast, UK.
Matthew Wood is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield, UK.

1. Introduction
2. Aims and Approach I: Stories within a Story, Positionality and Reflexivity
3. Aims and Approach II: People, Time and Locations, Conducting our Research and Analysis
4. Scope: The Effects of EU Law on Health and the NHS
5. Cross-border Healthcare in Great Britain
6. Cross-border Healthcare in Northern Ireland
7. NHS Staffing
8. Medicines, Medical Devices and Equipment
9. Biomedical Research
10. The UK's Trade Relationships, the NHS, and Health
11. Accountability for Post-Brexit Health Governance
12. Conclusions