NHS

Student nurse Dorothy Norris

A brief guide to the history of the NHS

Susan Cohen discusses the highs and lows of the NHS, from its creation in 1948 to the challenges it faces today. (Image by Getty Images)

The NHS: a brief history

Listening in: a doctor uses a stethoscope to examine a patient in 1948. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

The birth pains of the NHS: how Britain’s National Health Service was created

Nurses serve lunch to patients at a Birmingham hospital, 1939. (Photo by Humphrey Spender/Picture Post/Getty Images)

Paying for healthcare: life in Britain before the ‘free’ NHS

Mona Baptiste, a Trinidad-born blues singer

“London is the place for me”: David Olusoga on the Windrush generation

N Dubois de Chémant demonstrating his own, and a grotesque female patient's false teeth, to a prospective male patient with grossly disfigured teeth. (Wellcome Collection)

The Library A bite-sized history of dentistry

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The painful truth about rationing in the NHS

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Does history support the argument for NHS reform?

Labour politician Aneurin Bevan, the chief architect of the National Health Service, 20 August 1945. (Photo by John F Stephenson/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

The NHS: what can we learn from history?