War Time Origins of the NHS

Warfare

History Hit

History

4.5 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2023

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

2023 marks 75 years of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. Often heralded as one of the greatest post-war institutions, providing free health care at the point of use, however to what extent is the NHS truly a product of the Second World War? Turns out the answer, like most things in history, is a lot more complicated. It's a story that involves both the world wars as well as the ongoing struggle between communist and capitalist ideologies that defined the Cold War.

To help navigate this topic, James Patton Rogers is joined by author of Sick Note: A History of the British Welfare State and historian, Dr Gareth Millward.

This episode was produced by Elena Guthrie and edited by Annie Coloe.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's said that war makes the state and the state makes war. And here on the
0:06.7	warfare podcast we spend a lot of time focusing on how nations start wars and
0:11.6	fight battles, but much less on the lasting impact of
0:15.4	those wars on society and this week is a special week it's the 75th anniversary
0:20.9	of the NHS that vital social welfare net that brought health care to all free at the point of use after the Second World War in the United Kingdom.
0:30.0	But how did the Second World War impact and spur on the creation of a national health service of the NHS?
0:37.0	Well, I'm your host James Patton Rogers, this is warfare, and to explore how the brutality of war led to a cross-political effort to improve the health of a nation,
0:46.0	I'm joined by my friend, colleague, an expert historian Gareth Millwood.
0:50.0	Gareth is a historian of the Welfare State of the NHS and the author of Sick Note, a history of the British Welfare State, published by Oxford University Press.
0:59.2	Together we sat down on my office to explore this fascinating history of how war makes the
1:04.7	state how the Second World War made the NHS. Enjoy. Garth,
1:15.0	welcome to Warfer.
1:18.0	I am very well, thank you.
1:19.0	It's good to be here.
1:20.0	It's great to have you on the podcast.
1:21.0	I'm sure you're not very often invited onto
1:23.8	podcasts that are to do with war and military history. That's not because you're not
1:27.3	an amazing speaker and a fantastic expert academic, but you are a historian of
1:32.2	the welfare state of the NHS.
1:35.0	Some people might think that the two don't go together.
1:37.0	Exactly, more of a post-war historian than anything else, but I guess if you're going to say post-war,
1:42.0	there's a war thing a there's a war thing
	...

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