Stories

The History of the NHS

This six-part series explores the immense significance of the NHS to the British people. From its founding in July 1948, to the unprecedented pressures it faces today, Cal Flyn documents critical moments in the organisation’s history.

  • Serial
Photographic portrait of urological surgeon, Sarah Itam outside University College Hospital.
Sarah Itam, urological surgeon. Fellow at University College Hospital, London, Benjamin Gilbert. Source: Wellcome Collection.
  • Serial
Photographic portrait of Joyce Thompson standing in front of the Royal Blackburn Hospital.
Part1
The birth of Britain's National Health Service

Starkly unequal access to healthcare gave rise to Nye Bevan’s creation of a truly national health service.

  • Serial
Photographic portrait of a man standing in the colonnades at Guys Hospital, London.
Part2
Fees, funding and the NHS

In the 1950s, dramatic political battles over NHS charges brought down a government. But public confidence in the service still grew.

  • Serial
Photographic portrait of Cecilia Brown outside St George's University Hospital, London.
Part3
Medics, migration and the NHS

In the 1960s the NHS became Britain’s biggest employer. So to help fill all those jobs, the government brought in thousands of workers from abroad.

  • Serial
Photographic portrait of Dr Shiv Pande outside his former GP surgery.
Part4
National health in the decade of discontent

When the social unrest of the 1970s spread to the NHS, dissatisfied staff challenged the status quo for the first time in quarter of a century.

  • Serial
Photographic portrait of Mandy English, paramedic, at Hull East Ambulance Station, with ambulances in the background.
Part5
NHS Blue: the colour of universal healthcare

The 1980s and 1990s saw ideas from the world of business infiltrating the NHS, including the introduction of an internal market, followed by a corporate branding exercise.

  • Serial
Photographic portrait of urological surgeon, Sarah Itam outside University College Hospital.
Part6
Born in the NHS

Despite underfunding, strikes and scandals, the first two decades of the 2000s has seen the British people’s love of and loyalty to the NHS soar.