Healthcare is a sector changing at breakneck speed due to new technologies, fresh policies, years of cutbacks, and market forces. But is healthcare heading the right way, and are the developments ones which are happening in the interests of the patient, for whom the whole healthcare system was supposedly set up? Are we all being given optimum treatment? How heavily do commercial interests weigh against patient interests? In healthcare, is government largely concerned with the patient or with the industry?Guided by the question of whether the patient is still the focal point of healthcare, Peter Kapitein undertook years of research. In How has it ever come to this?, he explains the status quo in healthcare by taking cancer as his case study. We see that far superior care is available than is actually being provided.Financial rewards attach to treatment activities, and these treatments are all about an illness, not about a human being. It turns out that the system thrives on having as many patients as possible and keeping them in patient status for as long as possible.How has it ever come to this? is a compelling book at a time when healthcare as we have known it is entering a new era. For anyone keen to understand where we come from, where we currently are and where we are heading, and, no less so, where we ought to be heading, this book is an essential signpost providing an intriguing analysis and solution.