The NHS in context: notes from the Ministry of Health

The National Health Service, which started on 5th July, 1948, is an agreed Service from the point of view of politics. All three of the major political parties have accepted it and played their part in its planning, and it is therefore wrong to refer to it as "Socialised Medicine" as though it were a feature of one party only. All three parties are committed to it, and it is not expected that a change of Government would make any serious difference to the scheme as a whole, although details might be altered. In order to understand the National Health Service and to realize why it has taken the shape it has it is necessary to know something of how the different health services in this country developed.