The National Health Service: A Political History

Front Cover
Oxford University Press, 2002 - History - 284 pages
The foundation of the National Health Service on 5 July 1948 was a momentous development in the history of the United Kingdom. Issues of health care touch the lives of everyone, and the NHS has come to be regarded as the cornerstone of the welfare state and as a model for state-organisedhealth care systems elsewhere. Yet throughout its history, the Service has existed in an atmosphere of crisis. Charles Webster's political history is an entirely new and original examination of the NHS from its inception through to its management under the first term of the current Labourgovernment, providing the necessary framewrork for assessing its future as we enter the new millennium.
 

Selected pages

Contents

Creation and Consolidation
1
Planning and Reorganization
65
Continuous Revolution
140
New Age of Labour
208
Conclusions
253
General Elections Prime Ministers and Health Ministers from 1945
259
Notes
262
Further Reading
274
Index
277
Copyright

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About the author (2002)

Charles Webster is at All Souls College, Oxford.

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