todayinhistory: July 5th 1948: NHS launched On this day in...

A leaflet published around the time of the launch of the NHS in 1948 (source, read the whole leaflet here: http://j.mp/1j8n9xl)





Health Secretary Aneurin Bevan, a key figure in the push for the NHS, opens Park Hospital in Manchester (source: http://j.mp/1j8n9NA)





A tribute to the NHS during the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony in London (source: http://j.mp/1j8n9NC)

todayinhistory:

July 5th 1948: NHS launched

On this day in 1948, the National Health Service came into effect in the United Kingdom. Ideas for a nationalised health system had been around for decades before 1948, but it was not until then that they became a reality for British citizens. The Labour government of Clement Attlee, elected in 1945, were committed to the principles of the welfare state. They were greatly influenced by the 1942 Beveridge Report, which recommended social reform to tackle the five ‘Giant Evils’ of squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease. Thinkers around Britain thus came to see healthcare as a fundamental universal right, not a privilege held by a few. Working with these ideas, the government passed the National Health Service Act in 1946, which came into effect on July 5th 1948 and created the NHS in England and Wales (Scotland’s was created separately). The creation of the NHS led to universal health care in the United Kingdom, paid for through central taxation, ending the requirement that patients pay directly for their own healthcare. It radically restructured the British health care system, with the NHS taking control of the almost half a million hospital beds in England and Wales and placing almost all hospitals and staff under its jurisdiction. Despite ongoing debates over the efficiency, cost and structure of the NHS, it remains a central feature of the British welfare state. As seen with its celebration during the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, the NHS is a point of national pride for Britain. Indeed, according to a recent study, thanks to the NHS Britain has the best healthcare system out of eleven of the world’s wealthiest nations, with the United States in last place.

66 years ago today

via Tumblr http://j.mp/1vJzYOv