The regulation of medical work in the UK has been shaped by the post-war settlement, which lead to the creation of the National Health Service in 1948. The removal of clinical care from the market was supported over the following decades by prohibitions of the sale of human organs and gametes. That settlement is now being dismantled, with the increasing privatisation of NHS facilities. The recommodification of medicine in Britain is achieved as part of broader patterns of neoliberal globalisation. Cross-border markets in health services are realized in law through international (e.g. the General Agreement on Trade in Services) and regional trade law (e.g. European Community law).
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