The options include medical savings accounts and various new forms of managed care like those available to workers in private industry.

The local authority (now the social services departments), must decide on the most appropriate form of care.

But some policies pay the same for both forms of care.

Treatment is in the form of supportive care such as fluids and oxygen.

Various forms of long-term residential care are available for elderly people.

But this reliance on only one form of foster care has helped create the current crisis.

Not even most forms of preventive care, like keeping diabetes under control, usually save money, despite what many people think.

An estimated four million people now receive some form of professional medical care at home.

"The forms of managed care that work at all do so by holding some hammer over the doctors," he said.

In my country, a new law entered into force last month on forms of care for children up to three years old.