The NHS
The NHS began in a Manchester hospital in 1948, with a Welsh minister, a 13-year-old patient and a model borrowed from a Welsh mining town.
Published
Quick Facts
- Launched
- 5 July 1948
- Founding minister
- Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health
- First patient
- Sylvia Diggory, aged 13, at Park Hospital, Davyhulme, Manchester
- Founding principle
- Care free at the point of use, paid for from general taxation
- Blueprint
- The 1942 Beveridge Report, plus local schemes such as Tredegar's
- Founding laws
- NHS Act 1946 (England and Wales), NHS (Scotland) Act 1947, Northern Ireland's Health Services Act 1948
- Today
- Four separate systems: NHS England, NHS Scotland, NHS Wales and Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland
- First big row
- Charges for dentures and spectacles in 1951 led Bevan to resign
The day Manchester became the front line
On 5 July 1948, the National Health Service opened its doors. The best-known scene took place at Park Hospital in Davyhulme, near Manchester, where Aneurin Bevan, the health minister, met some of the first patients. One of them was 13-year-old Sylvia Diggory, who was being treated for a liver condition. Park Hospital is now Trafford General. It is the place most often named as the birthplace of the NHS. The idea was simple, and at the time radical. Anyone living in Britain could see a doctor, go into hospital or visit a dentist without being asked to pay on the spot. The money came from taxation instead.
A Welsh miners' club helped design it
Bevan was from Tredegar, in the Welsh valleys, and he had grown up with a practical example of what he later built. The Tredegar Medical Aid Society collected small weekly contributions from local workers and used them to pay for doctors and care. Many other mining communities ran similar schemes. The wider case came from the Beveridge Report of 1942, which named disease as one of five giant evils to be defeated after the war. Bevan's achievement was to turn that ambition into a national service. He also took most hospitals into public ownership, which was one of the hardest parts of the job. Scotland had its own head start. The Highlands and Islands Medical Service, set up in 1913, already used public money to bring doctors to remote communities.
The bill nobody expected
Demand on day one was enormous. People who had put up with bad teeth, poor eyesight and long-term pain for years finally had somewhere to go. Spending ran well beyond the early estimates. In 1951 the government introduced charges for dentures and spectacles. Bevan resigned in protest, and Harold Wilson and John Freeman left with him. A prescription charge followed in 1952. The argument over what should be free, and for whom, has run through the NHS ever since.
One name, four systems
The NHS was never really a single machine. The 1946 act covered England and Wales, Scotland passed its own law in 1947, and Northern Ireland followed with legislation in 1948. Since devolution, health has been run by each nation's own government, so the four services have steadily drifted apart. Prescriptions show the difference most clearly. Wales abolished its prescription charge in 2007, Northern Ireland in 2010 and Scotland in 2011. England still charges, though many people are exempt. Northern Ireland has long run health and social care as one joined-up system, a model it has used since 1973. Scotland organises care through territorial health boards. Wales runs its service through local health boards. The core promise is shared, but the arrangements are not.
Why people care so much
The NHS is a service, but it is also part of how Britain sees itself. It was a centrepiece of the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, with nurses and children's hospital beds in the middle of the stadium. In spring 2020, millions stood on doorsteps on Thursday evenings to applaud its staff. Its birthday, 5 July, is marked each year. Few other British institutions are felt to belong to everyone in quite the same way. The fights over funding, waiting times and the shape of the service are fierce because of that. People argue about the NHS because they feel they own it.
Notable people
- Aneurin Bevan
- William Beveridge
- Sylvia Diggory
- Harold Wilson
- John Freeman
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