'The new National Health Service' leaflet

Four page fold out leaflet giving information on 'the new National Health Service', as delivered to all households in the run up to the launch of the NHS in July 1948.

Britain’s National Health Service was launched on 5th July 1948. There had been underlying political and social pressures for the creation of such a system for many years, but the experience of the Second World War greatly accelerated the process. Various factors – such as the need to coordinate medical services in the face of air raids and mass civilian casualties and the clear evidence that such an approach could be successful as well as the public’s appetite for a better quality of life once the hardships of war were over, combined to create a fertile environment for change. With publication of a government document, known as The Beveridge Report in 1942, which provided the blueprint for the welfare state, including a comprehensive medical service available to all regardless of income, the public had a popular vision of the future.

Largely a rationalisation and reorganisation of existing services, the country’s healthcare became more centralised and controlled compared to the patchwork of provision that had existed previously. Before 1948, an individual’s access to medical care could depend on the levels of local authority funding or charitable donations or their own private insurance or ability to pay a doctor’s fee directly. Financed through direct taxation, medical provision became a nationwide system that was far more standardised and unified and one which was ultimately under the control of the government.

The four page leaflet that was delivered to households across the country, provided basic information about the new service and how it could be accessed. Three of the areas highlighted – the care of the eyes, teeth and hearing – proved to be particularly popular. Demand for spectacles, dentures and hearing aids were such that the systems of provision were overwhelmed. Large patient backlogs developed and the NHS decided to bring in fees during the early 1950s to reduce the clamour for such devices.