1.2 Health Provision 1918-45 Britain

• Ministry of Health (1919)


  Responsible for coordinating health at a regional level and administering funds raised by the national health insurance
• Healthcare consensus (1919)


  • Agreed that the government should spend more money on research
  • Agreed that the government should spend more money on medical training
  • Agreed that the government should establish a national network of hospitals across the UK
• Organisations that agreed on a regional based healthcare system

  • British Medical Association
  • Royal Commission
• Local Government Act (1929)


  • Allowed county councils to convert poor law infirmaries, which only served the poor, to public hospitals
  • Gave local authorities responsibilities for other areas of public health such as child welfare, dentistry and school meals
• Single health authority


  Meant LAs could provide services for whole population
• In the depression (1929), half of the population did not have insurance so had to rely on private healthcare
• Deprived areas such as Tyneside had higher casualties to illness due to poor living conditions. From 1923 -25, 93 out of every 1000 people died premature deaths
• GPs


  • Charged for diagnosis and treatment but treated poor people for free
  • 'Panel doctors' only treated patients with insurance
• Healthcare in 1939


  • The government wanted to implement a more stable regional based healthcare system
  • The medical journal 'the Lancet' recommended a national based one
• Emergency Medical Service (EMS)


  • Founded in 1939 to provide casualty clearing stations for people injured during air raids
  • Allowed the government to dictate a hospital's activities, a power it never previously had
  • Central organising of power of the state provided to be attractive to independent doctors and hospitals as it made life easier