Economic decline has brought bad health and the resulting bad habits. There is also a large, and growing, population of the elderly for whom care has to be provided. It seems to present an enormous challenge. But things are not as bad as they appear at first. There are many good people in the community who are trying to do something about the situation. So there is hope. What sort of role do we see for the NHS in the future? The NHS will be financially constrained whichever government is in power, and we cannot expect it to solve all our problems alone. Communities must do something to help. This book sest out ideas about how a community-based, democratically run health service will function in the future. If we are to deal with bad health, it is a job for all of us. Despite our problems, we have some examples of very good practice that provide some idea of what sort of health service we could have in this country in the future.