On 5th July 1948, Labour Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevan MP, launched the NHS at Park Hospital in Manchester (Trafford General Hospital).
This picture is him with the NHS’s first patient, 13 year old Sylvia Diggory.
This pages collates MyHSN’s 10 articles on the History of the NHS.
History of NHS in one sentence
History of NHS (one sentence per decade)
History of NHS Timeline
Short history of NHS
Origins and pre-history of NHS
Early history of NHS – 1900-1948
History of NHS – 1948-1960
History of NHS – 1960-1980
History of NHS – 1980-2000
History of NHS – 2000-present day
This information was delivered to every home in the UK. It’s worth reading.
The NHS Act 1946 brought the NHS into being. Its chief architect of the NHS was Aneurin Bevan MP (shown above),
The 1948 had three pillars, the so called ‘tripartite system’. These were Hospitals, General Practice, and Community and Domiciliary Services (which crucially didn’t incorporate social care). Big mistake. They didn’t mean to make it.
But remember the NHS was a grubby compromise between the government and doctors who largely opposed it. Social care was and is in another ministry.
Hence these three key components (4 with social care) did and do largely run separately today (in fact, they are rivals) – which causes huge communication problems, poor performance, and a blame culture (e.g. hospitals blame GPs and v.v.) .. as the public well know.
If you read the articles above, you can judge when the NHS really started, how it developed, IT being a low priority, why it isn’t working well, and maybe see the solutions. What are yours? ..
