Healthcare 1945-79

• NHS Act 1946 proposed idea of NHS
• The Beveridge Report was published on 2nd December 1942, it outlined the need to create a welfare state.
• Bevan had Unique Selling Point for NHS, everything would cost nothing
• Nye Bevan was born in Tregedar (mining town) where seeds of NHS sewn, there was a workers help service set up there
• Tregedar Workers Medical Society was inspiration for Bevan for NHS
• Bevan spoke a lot about Women's health which wasn't done previously
• When Bevan struggled with winning over Senior Doctors he went directly to Lord Moran (President of Royal College of Physicians, and Winston Churchill's Doctor)
• Lord Moran convinced his colleagues that they could not refuse to work under the new system as it would be seen as elitist
• Bevan negotiated that Consultants can work for state and also work privately
• July 5th 1948 when NHS started
• In 1960s there were concerns about cost of NHS so prescription charges introduced by Harold Wilson
• Bevan also made an amendment to please GPs where they could keep their surgeries as private property
• Doctors hated the idea of the NHS becasue they thought that it would rob them of their independence and freedom
• Hierarchy ran through the profession, with the most senior doctors being most respected
• GPs were scared that they would be demoted to civil service and before negotiations 85% of poll voted against joining the NHS
• During negotiations with Lord Moran, their was an election for the leader, 165 votes to Hoarder (anti-NHS) and 170 to Moran
• The BMA agreed to join the NHS on condition that they kept control over their own practices
• There was no national health insurance scheme during war because Bevan wanted to wait until the end of the war when he had more bargaining power
• In 1948, Bevan announced that all medical services would be free at point of use
• In 10yrs after the creation of the NHS infant deaths halved
• NHS dramatically improved lives of children
• NHS provided free immunisation
• Eventually Doctors who didn't sign up in favour of NHS started to lose business
• The NHS was funded by taxation which meant it was progressive as those with higher income paid proportionally more than lower earners
• Aneurin Bevan - Minister of Health from 1945-1951
• Before opening of NHS there was a last minute campaign to find nurses, 30,000 were needed
• 'I stuffed their mouths with gold' - What Bevan said he did to sway Consultants
• On 4th of July, Bevan spoke out against the Tory Party which overshadowed the NHS as newspapers cared more about this than the NHS
• Bevan had been warned not to speak at the conference but ignored them called tory party 'lower than vermin'
• February 1948, 90% of BMA voted against working within the NHS
• Bevan overcame BMA by granting doctors a fee for each patient on their books, rather than paying them a direct salary and by allowing consultants to retain private patients
• In first 10yrs of NHS, new antibiotic drugs developed in the USA caused the number of deaths from TB to fall from 25,000 a year to 5,000
• By 1963, there were only 1,000 cases of TB per year
• The NHS was very popular among the public due to it being free at point of use and funded through taxation
• NHS provided healthcare regardless of income or social class
• A programme of mass immunisation led to a huge drop in cases of polio and diptheria in the mid 1950s
• There was a 90% drop in cases of whooping cough by 1970 and syphilis was almost completely eradicat4ed by the early 1990s
• MMR vaccine devloped in 1971, by USA and NHS began offering MMR vaccine free of charge in 1988
• Improved midwifery led maternal death in childbirth to fall from one per 1000 in 1949 to 0.18 in 1970
• Over 300 inadequate cottage hospitals were closed in the 1960s and new centres of excellence, with close ties to universities, were founded, along with district general hospitals for larger towns