Would charging for NHS appointments really cut demand?

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By Beth Roberts

Former Health Secretary Sajid Javid has resurrected a policy idea that refuses to die: paying a fee to see your GP to lower demand for over-stretched services. Is there any evidence it would work?

When spearheading the foundation of the National Health Service in 1948, Aneurin Bevan, the Labour Minister of Health, promised that healthcare would be “available to the whole population freely”.¹ But since then that hasn’t always been the case.