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From Its Cradle to Its Grave? The National Health Service in Britain, 1948-Present

Module description

Stay home. Protect the NHS. Save lives. With these 7 words, the British government appealed to public love and admiration for the NHS to support the state’s evolving public health measures in the face of a novel pandemic. But how did a loose collection of health services, sutured together in 1948, attain such political, emotional, and cultural power? How has the NHS endured and adapted to major social, economic, epidemiological, and political change since its foundation? And how has Britain’s universal healthcare been shaped not just by dreams of equality and solidarity, but also by structures of discrimination and exclusion, inequities of power, and persistent imperial legacies? Drawing on a diverse set of sources – from novels and television through to policy documents and activist literature – this module introduces you to the varied cultural, social and political lives of the NHS across its 75 years, and asks you to subject these lives to critical reflection.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to:

• Introduce you to the increasingly pluralistic perspectives historians adopt to study the NHS, and to encourage a critical engagement with its vast and varied archives of primary sources.
• Explore the NHS’s diverse histories through a series of thematically-oriented case-studies, paying particular attention to the political and cultural structures that have shaped the Service and the lived experiences of its everyday operations.
• Develop the skill of historicising contemporary events and institutions by contextualising current debates and reassuring fantasies of the NHS within complex, often erased, histories of oppression and resistance.
• Build research, analytical, interpretative and communication skills that can be applied in further academic studies or in graduate careers across sectors. This will be achieved by considering how the NHS has responded to shifting policy environments, epidemiological challenges, and economic circumstances, has been the subject of cultural fantasy and psychological attachment, and has provided a central institution of (post-)imperial welfare and British social life.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Display specialist knowledge of the sources available to historians of the NHS, and subject them to critical close reading.
• 2. Demonstrate a capacity to analyse, compare, and evaluate the use of different materials in exploring diverse histories of the NHS.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Demonstrate an ability to understand and deploy complex historical terminology in a comprehensible manner.
• 4. Critically examine how the writing of history and perceptions of the past can influence contemporary political, social, and cultural debate, and vice versa.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Independent and autonomous study and group work, including presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning.
• 8. Ability to digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment.
• 9. Ability to present complex arguments orally, textually, and in other formats for different audiences.
• 10. Ability to reflect critically on your own work, to respond constructively to feedback, and to implement suggestions and improve work on this basis.

Syllabus plan

The course will vary year-to-year, but it is expected to cover some or all of the following topics –

• The development of universal healthcare in Britain and whether the electorate wanted an NHS.
• Social democracy and imperial-resourcing: migration, and colonial legacies in staffing.
• Racism and anti-racism in the NHS.
• Gender, misogyny, and women’s health.
• Class and service inequalities.
• Nostalgia, critique and popular culture.
• Industrial action.
• Service innovation and epidemiology (eg. epidemics, sexual health, chronic illness).
• Medical heterodoxies.
• Consumerism and activism.
• Material environments and the emotions.
• Nationalism and belonging.
• Globalising the NHS.
• Neoliberalism, the “private sector”, and the end of the NHS?

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to redo the assessment(s) as defined above. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• John Berger and Jean Mohr, A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor, (New York: Vintage International, [1967] 1997).
• Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie and Suzanne Scafe, The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain, (London: Virago, 1985).
• Margaret Drabble, The Millstone, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1965] 1980).
• Buchi Emecheta, Second-Class Citizen, (London: Flamingo, [1974] 1987).
• Richard Gordon, Doctor at Large, (London: Michael Joseph, 1955).
• Anne Cartwright, Patients and their Doctors: A Study of General Practice, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• A Better NHS Blog: https://abetternhs.net.
• BBC Online: https://www.bbc.co.uk.
• Box of Broadcasts, British Cartoon Archive, British Film Institute, Mass Observation Archives, Women’s Magazine Archives (available via the Library).
• The King’s Fund:https://www.kingsfund.org.uk.
• The Nuffield Trust: https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk.
• People’s History of the NHS:https://peopleshistorynhs.org.
• Pulse: https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk. 
• Wellcome Collection: https://wellcomecollection.org

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

Institutional Holdings -

• Black Cultural Archives, London.
• British Library (esp. oral history collections).
• Devon Heritage Centre, Exeter.
• The National Archives, London.
• The Wellcome Collection, London.
• Women’s Library at LSE.

Key words search

National Health Service, NHS, post-war Britain, welfare state, healthcare