Our NHS: A History of Britain's Best Loved Institution

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In Fighting for Life , Hardman is less concerned with ideological frames and gloomier about the future. From the publisher: “In this wide-ranging history, Andrew Seaton examines the full story of the NHS. I could gain some critical distance from the two predominant narratives about the service that circulated in the media and in everyday conversation: that it was a natural part of what made Britain special and/or that it stood on the precipice of collapse. Our NHS is an engaging, inclusive history of the NHS, exploring its surprising survival and the people who have kept it running . That is especially true for women and children, who had previously depended on the indulgence of husbands and fathers for access to medicine.

On the other hand, as many public health experts observed, the disproportionate mortality rates from Covid-19 among working-class communities and people from ethnic and racial minority backgrounds underlined the longer-term health inequalities in Britain. Our NHSwas published in the summer of 2023, during a period of serious concern for the health service.I show that attitudes, culture, ideas, and activism also matter to the fate of welfare services, alongside administration or finances. By highlighting these dynamics, I build on insights from prior historical scholarship (often informed by social science) that explained the resilience of welfare states through structural factors like the advantages of pooling risks or the power of ‘path dependence’ in social policy. Though I learned first-hand about the serious challenges facing the service from doctors and patients in my audiences as I spoke about the book after its publication, I also encountered public attachment to the NHS that reminded me why it had lasted through other periods of crisis.

Anenurin Bevan, Minister of Health, on the first day of the NHS (5th July 1948) at Park Hospital, Davyhulme, via University of Liverpool. Rishi Sunak, knowing how that charge resonates with voters, will swear allegiance to state-run, collectivised healthcare although it is an affront to many of his party’s sacred beliefs. Britain’s National Health Service remains a cultural icon—a symbol of excellent, egalitarian care since its founding more than seven decades ago. Seaton emphasizes the resilience of the NHS-perpetually "in crisis" and yet perennially enduring-as well as the political values it embodies and the work of those who have tirelessly kept it afloat. With an appreciation of the motives of those who have attacked its founding principles, to penetrating analysis of its resilience, this book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the history of our NHS.To celebrate, we have selected 50 important Yale London books from our past, present and future to tell the story of our publishing through a series of articles and extracts. It might be vulnerable to spoilage and neglect, but no one imagines it could be erased and no politician who wants to get elected will be caught suggesting such a thing. He explains not only why it survived the neoliberalism of the late twentieth century but also how it became a key marker of national identity.