HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2024-11-01T22:48:07.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: The NHS: everything you wanted to know
items: How should we see the NHS's history on its 75th anniversary?
items: How Britain fell in love with the NHS
items: Was there ever a golden age of the NHS?
items: A brief guide to the history of the NHS
items: The NHS: a brief history
items: The birth pains of the NHS: how Britain's National Health Service was created
items: What was healthcare like in Britain before the NHS?

The NHS: everything you wanted to know
type: item
date: 2023-07-30T06:27:45.000Z
creator: Matt Elton
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
subject: NHS
description: Andrew Seaton tackles listener questions about the UK’s National Health Service as it marks its 75th anniversary
encoded: How did the British public respond when the NHS was first founded 75 years ago? How have the roles of doctors and nurses changed in the decades since? And was there ever a ‘golden age’ of the National Health Service? In our latest Everything you wanted to know episode, Andrew Seaton tackles listener questions about the UK’s National Health Service, to mark its 75th anniversary. Andrew Seaton is the author of Our NHS: A History of Britain's Best Loved Institution (Yale University Press, 2023) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones

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How should we see the NHS's history on its 75th anniversary?
type: item
date: 2023-07-05T06:09:00.000Z
creator: Dr Andrew Seaton
subject: 21st Century
subject: Period
subject: NHS
subject: Video shorts
description: On the 75th anniversary of the founding of Britain's National Health Service (NHS), Dr Andrew Seaton considers whether looking back at the institution's history can provide an understanding of where the NHS fits in our lives today…
encoded: “I think a lot of present debate about the NHS kind of moves between two poles,” says Dr Andrew Seaton. “On one side, we have a sometimes quite sickly, treacly view of the NHS, which is all rainbows and hearts and the idea of ‘Our NHS’. And on the other side, we have a deeply pessimistic view of the NHS, about the care it produces, and an idea that it's going to collapse any day even though it's lasted 75 years. On the podcast | What was healthcare like in Britain before the NHS? “So I think if we can find a way of using history to move beyond those two poles of conversation, that would be great. And I think once we do, we'll actually find many, many surprising and frankly more interesting things to talk about in the history of the NHS. The fact that it wasn't universally and always celebrated at its inception, [for instance], or the fact that it was deeply implicated in processes of decolonisation and the experience of immigration in Britain. The fact that this state institution could adapt and could be reflexive to social change. The fact that not everything after the 1980s was privatised and slid into disrepair. “And I think that, if we think about the history of the NHS in a different way – if we bring in new voices, [those of] patients, the public, different sets of experts, architects, economists, these kinds of people, as well as cultural figures, the filmmakers, the novelists and so on – I think we'll get a wider and more interesting understanding of where the NHS fits in our lives today.” Dr Andrew Seaton was talking to Matt Elton on the HistoryExtra podcast. Read and hear more about the history of the NHS

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How Britain fell in love with the NHS
type: item
date: 2023-07-05T04:35:40.000Z
creator: Dr Andrew Seaton
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: NHS
description: Since its faltering launch in 1948, the National Health Service has become a cherished part of British society. Andrew Seaton explains how it attained that status
encoded: As Britain’s National Health Service celebrates its 75th anniversary this July, two topics look set to dominate the extensive media coverage. The first is the sense of crisis stalking the NHS, illustrated by sky-high waiting lists, troubling financial shortcomings, exhausted staff and extensive industrial action. The second is the NHS’s enviable reputation as arguably Britain’s best-loved institution. In 2022, some 62 per cent of people surveyed by polling organisation Ipsos stated that the service was the thing that made them “most proud to be British” – an increase of 12 per cent from 2016. The fun-runs, tea parties and other events marking the NHS’s ‘birthday’ on 5 July speak to its standing in British public life. It’s an institution that appears to be part of the furniture – and, at the same time, on the brink of collapse. No other part of the welfare state attracts the same level of admiration. People do not bake cakes to commemorate the introduction of child benefit payments. Nor do they attend street parties to mark the construction of council estates. Even among Britain’s international peers, there are few countries that view their health system as emblematic of their ‘national’ values. True, Canadians might cite their country’s guarantee of universal healthcare as a point of pride to lord over their US neighbours to the south, but Canada does not celebrate its health service to the same degree as we do in Britain. Clearly, despite its many and vocal critics, the NHS is widely beloved. But from where did this public support stem? And to what extent have the difficulties facing the service, and the persistent sense of ‘crisis’ they’ve engendered, shaped this sentiment over time? Public affection for the NHS had to be actively nurtured. It was not inevitable that any state-organised universal health system founded after the Second World War would eventually attract such a degree of popular support. Achieving such an outcome took both effort and time. Supporte…

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Was there ever a golden age of the NHS?
type: item
date: 2023-07-04T16:04:39.000Z
creator: Dr Andrew Seaton
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: NHS
subject: Video shorts
description: Dr Andrew Seaton of the University of Oxford considers the question of a 'golden era' of Britain's National Health Service, founded in 1948…
encoded: “This is an important question, because it frames and underpins our idea of crisis and decline," says Dr Andrew Seaton. “This idea that there was a golden age for the NHS, and that now we’re no longer in a golden age. So history is very important to our present understandings of 'decline and crisis', these kinds of phrases that are used around the NHS. “There was no such thing as a golden age for the NHS. Often what you'll see, particularly from the [political] left, is the postwar decades presented as a golden era of the welfare state: the supposed generosity of Clement Attlee’s government and their support for welfare services, the supposed golden era of harmony on the wards, respect for the matron, this kind of stuff. It's just not true. It's a fantasy. If we look at funding levels, the Attlee governments actually spent more money on imperial commitments and overseas military commitments than they did [on] the welfare state. That’s the first point to make. There were social divisions on the wards, too. It wasn't that everyone had respect for matrons in the past. [And] if you were a woman or a working-class person or someone who wasn't white, you might be condescended to [for instance]. These kind of social cleavages existed in the postwar years. “So I suppose in that sense, if we're thinking about golden eras or high-water marks for the NHS, it really depends what we're thinking about here. If we're thinking about funding, then the most generous point is under New Labour in the late 1990s and during the 2000s. That is the point when the UK, for the first time in the postwar era, came up to the level of its international industrialised peers in terms of spending on healthcare. So it depends what lens we’re looking [through]. “And I would argue that it isn't necessarily in the deep, deep past that we could find the high-water marks of the NHS. It could be surprisingly recent. In 2010, 2011 and maybe even 2012, the Commonwealth Foundation (which is an independent he…

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A brief guide to the history of the NHS
type: item
date: 2021-01-22T12:35:46.000Z
creator: Rhiannon Davies
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: NHS
description: Founded to give free healthcare to all, the National Health Service is one of the UK’s most beloved institutions. But since it was founded in 1948, it’s faced a slew of demanding challenges, from ballooning costs to lethal epidemics
encoded: Before the National Health Service (NHS) came into being, Britain’s healthcare – and the health of its people – left much to be desired. Pre-Second World War, infectious diseases including diphtheria and tuberculosis were rife, and infant mortality rates were high. Healthcare was something of a postcode lottery, with those who lived near to institutions like the St London teaching hospital in London most likely receiving a higher standard of care than people whose closest port of call was a cottage hospital with few beds. And, of course, people had to pay for their healthcare: in the 1930s, one doctor’s visit was approximately three shillings and sixpence – an eye-watering cost that even the middle classes struggled with. Officials had recommended that a free national health service should be introduced in England as early as 1920. However, it wasn’t until 1942 and the release of the Beveridge Report, which set out a system of free healthcare funded by taxes, that it seemed possible such an ambitious project could become a reality. Read more about life in Britain before the 'free' NHS When did the NHS begin? On 6 November 1946 Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan, the Minister of Health in Clement Attlee’s Labour government, oversaw the passing of legislation that brought the service into being: the National Health Service Act for England and Wales (there was separate legislation produced for Scotland and Northern Ireland). But, as the country was still economically reeling from the Second World War, the service was not formally founded until 1948. In the early days, Bevan faced opposition from doctors who were worried that working for the service would limit their independence and hamstring their income. But he eventually persuaded them to join the NHS, later claiming that he had “stuffed their mouths with gold”; he agreed that consultants could keep their private practices and thus retain their financial freedom. On 5 July 1948, the day the NHS officially launched, 85 per cent of …

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The NHS: a brief history
type: item
date: 2021-01-22T12:25:03.000Z
creator: Rhiannon Davies
subject: 20th Century
subject: 21st Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: NHS
description: Susan Cohen discusses the highs and lows of the NHS, from its creation in 1948 to the challenges it faces today
encoded: Historian Susan Cohen discusses how Britain’s National Health Service has changed over the decades since its landmark creation in 1948. She explores the challenges of providing ‘cradle-to-grave care’ for all Britons, and discusses some of the biggest issues that the service has faced, including discrimination in the ranks, AIDS and Covid-19. Read more about the history of the NHS

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The birth pains of the NHS: how Britain's National Health Service was created
type: item
date: 2020-07-03T15:00:16.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: NHS
description: The creation of the National Health Service in 1948 is widely celebrated as a glorious chapter in the history of modern Britain. But, argues Mathew Thomson, a mixture of political infighting, middle-class scepticism and a chronic inability to meet demand meant that this was far from a smooth delivery
encoded: In July 2018, the National Health Service reached its 70th anniversary. The event was marked in a way that is extraordinary for a state institution, including ceremonies at both Westminster Abbey and York Minster. The NHS appears to have become, as former chancellor Nigel Lawson put it, something akin to a national religion. But this was a national religion with a troubled birth. By 1946, two years before the NHS came kicking and screaming into the world, it had become clear that Britain stood on the cusp of a new era of state medicine. The National Health Service Act was pushed through parliament that year, spearheaded by the Labour government’s minister of health, Aneurin Bevan. In fact, a radical move in this direction had been difficult to hold back since the Beveridge Report of 1942 had championed the foundation of the welfare state, and a war on the “giant evils” of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. There was a degree of consensus on the need for change and, in 1944, the wartime coalition government had brought that change ever closer with a landmark white paper that proposed a comprehensive and free health service. Paying for healthcare: life in Britain before the ‘free’ NHS But beneath the calm surface lurked a considerable degree of suspicion and resistance from wide swathes of the public, many of whom baulked at the prospect of the loss of traditional medical cultures – hospitals with proud voluntary traditions and strong roots in the local community – and the meddling of an over-interventionist state. There were also significant differences between the two main political parties over what form the new health service should take. Labour’s remarkable victory in the general election of 1945 owed a lot to the feeling that it was the party more likely to push forward plans for social reform. But with the combative Bevan at the helm, the medical profession proving an obstacle, and the economic fallout from six years of war putting severe constrain…

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What was healthcare like in Britain before the NHS?
type: item
date: 2018-08-09T14:11:06.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Money
subject: NHS
description: The National Health Service was launched on 5 July 1948 by the then minister of health, Aneurin Bevan, to provide healthcare that was free at the point of delivery. But what was life like for the sick and injured before Britain had a ‘free’ health service? Here, Dr George Campbell Gosling explores what it was like to be asked to pay for healthcare, and explains the profession that was established to handle such money matters…
encoded: They are little remembered now, but before the introduction of the NHS in 1948, some 1,000 women at hospitals across the country policed the boundaries of medical charity, public and private healthcare. It was the job of these ‘lady almoners’, as they were known, to interview patients and decide an appropriate rate. They increasingly also helped to make sure patients received the support they needed when they left the hospital (this had become their primary role by the 1960s, when they officially rebranded themselves as ‘medical social workers’). During Victorian times, the hospital was an institution that meant very different things for people of different classes. Associated in the public psyche with poverty, those who could afford a private doctor stayed away from the hospital at almost any cost. All hospitals – whether a workhouse infirmary or an elite voluntary hospital – were institutions founded and funded by the middle and upper classes to serve the medical welfare needs of the working-class population without charge. Despite a complete lack of evidence, there was widespread fear in the 19th century that the system was being abused. This led to the first almoner being appointed at London’s Royal Free Hospital in 1895; one Miss Mary Stewart had the task to assess those coming to the hospital for treatment. Some were to be told they were too well-off, so should be treated privately. Others were told they should make some financial contribution to the hospital. The remainder received treatment for free but were advised to join a community savings scheme to ensure they could pay their way in future.This system was copied in a number of other London hospitals and, after the First World War, was rolled out across the country. In challenging economic circumstances – when the latest treatments were becoming more expensive to provide and demand for them was increasing – the hospitals reluctantly turned to the patients themselves as a source of income. <img src="https…

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