In the poor law was abolished and a growing number of workhouse infirmaries became general hospitals. The main beneficiaries of hospital expansion between the wars were women and children. Most infectious disease patients were children, and as the threat of typhus and smallpox declined these hospitals switched to general child medicine. Maternity wards were the fastest growing specialist service, with the public hospitals converting old poor-law blocks for the needs of expectant mothers.
Voluntary hospitals like the Jessop in Sheffield expanded their services, introducing scientific laboratories to help tackle rising maternal deaths. The work of doctors and hospitals was underpinned by a vast reservoir of active first aiders. Building on the work of the British Red Cross and Order of St John Voluntary Aid Detachments of the Great War, the interwar period saw the growth of a voluntary first aid network, providing a range of first response services.
At big events like the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in the summer of , the two organisations collaborated, caring for over 16, people suffering from accidents or illness. In addition to this medical work, by they had trained over , people to deal with gas attacks expected in the event of a war.
By well over half the population could access GP and hospital services free at the point of use. Certainly big gaps remained, some filled by voluntary bodies such as the British Red Cross. Women and children had limited access to GP surgeries but growing hospital services provided for them. The middle class were largely excluded and had to rely on increasingly expensive private doctors and their sub-standard nursing homes.
This exclusion, particularly from hospital treatment, probably explains why there was less opposition to the NHS than might have been expected, despite its radical restructuring of a broadly successful healthcare system.
The National Health Service today celebrates 70 years providing healthcare to the British public. On 5 July , the NHS was born as the government took responsibility of all medical services, providing free diagnosis and treatments for everybody. Following the landslide Labour victory in in the general election, Aneurin Bevan was appointed as the minister of health and was responsible for setting up the NHS.
And it was on 5 July that the government officially took over the responsibility for healthcare. This came in part from voluntary and municipal hospitals, which were run by local authorities following the historic Poor Law legislation. Treatments were performed by nurses and doctors who had spent time training with limited resources.
It meant those that offered contributions would receive money to assist them if they fell ill but it was only open to those who donated to the system. But the Labour government disliked this patchwork of options and believed a good healthcare system should be available to all, regardless of wealth. While people now are registered to a doctor, 70 years ago they did not have their own doctor.
The payment system was now echoing and formalising the social hierarchies and class distinctions of healthcare beyond the walls of the hospital. Private medicine was a marginal activity of the hospitals, but private surgeries were far more common. Doctors used the prestige of hospital work to build their credentials for lucrative private practice.
As a result, two schemes provided an alternative for working-class patients. One was the health insurance element of National Insurance, introduced in by Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George and expanded throughout the s and s. This was a compulsory insurance scheme for workers in certain industries, though it generally did not cover family members.
The other scheme was membership of one of the various community-owned mutual aid funds and medical clubs, into which working people could pay while times were good. They would receive access to a doctor, medicines and sometimes hospital treatment without having to see the almoner, by means of paying in advance. There were also some health insurance schemes available to middle-class individuals, helping them to meet what could be a substantial cost for treatment — whether in the private room of a hospital, a private nursing home or in their own home.
Plans to phase them out, championed in the s by Labour MP Barbara Castle, were finally abandoned followed the Conservative election victory in The idea, when Aneurin Bevan first introduced his new health system in , had been to abolish most forms of payment. It was, however, an ambition that was not shared by all — even some within his own Labour party opposed it. We sometimes imagine the NHS as being at the heart of a post-war consensus in British politics.
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