UK: THE National Health Service was set up just over 50 years ago to provide healthcare for all citizens, based on need, not the ability to pay.

Now the largest organisation in Europe, it is made up of a wide range of health professionals, support workers and organisations.

The NHS is seen by many people as the core of the 'welfare state'. People receive health care as a right. The principal rights are a right to be registered with a general practitioner, and the right to be medically examined. This generally means that a GP must visit a patient on the list who makes a request, though it has been accepted that examination at a distance may be feasible.

There is no formal right to receive any treatment this is within the discretion, or clinical judgment of the doctor.

The service itself has never been comprehensive. The NHS does ration resources according to priorities and some of the main complaints against it are the under funding and consequent dilapidation of some hospitals and the often long waiting lists for treatment and operations.

USA:THE American health care system works well in many ways.

Hospitals are numerous and superbly equipped. Most physicians are specialists with long years of training. Research facilities, both public and private, are the world's most productive.

But America has a two-tier health system and is the most fully privatised among industrialized nations.

Healthcare bills for most Americans are paid either by insurers, usually paid in turn by employers, or directly by the employers themselves.

A minority, chiefly the elderly and some of the poor, are insured by the Government through welfare, but a seventh of the population is completely uninsured and an equal number would be in danger of bankruptcy should serious illness strike their families.

Patients without health insurance generally receive care for emergencies though, and hospitals budget around five per cent for 'charity care' but it is common-place for patients to be screened about their insurance and consequent ability to pay for the treatment before they are admitted to hospital.