Health and Welfare

• 1906  - Education (Provision of Meals) Act

  Allowed local authorities to give free school meals, although most children did not receive them. It was an early act concerned with child welfare and led to the establishment of the school meals ser- vice, universalised during the Second World War.
• 1907  - Education (Administrative Provisions) Act

  Introduced the school medical service in order to provide inspection of the health of school children.
• 1908  - Children’s Act

  It increased the role of paid local authority health visitors in the raising of working-class children.
• 1911 - National Insurance Act

  Established insurance for some workers against ill health and unemployment. It was an important foundation stone in the emergence of the twentieth-century welfare system.
• 1921

  Free milk introduced for poor school children.
• 1921 - Local Authorities (Financial Provisions) Act

  Allowed for greater transfer of funds between wealthier and poorer boroughs, and gave the Ministry of Health increased power to set scales and terms of poor relief.
• 1926 - Board of Guardians (Default) Act

  Gave powers to the government to reconstitute boards of guardians that were viewed as overgenerous with representatives from the Ministry of Health.
• 1936—Public Health Act

  The first major update since 1875. Its coverage was comprehensive, including sanitation of public buildings, private accommodation, hospitals, provision and safety of water supply and disease notification and treatment. Maternity and child welfare were covered along with less obvious targets such as canal boats. Local authority powers and obligations were consolidated and expanded, and powers of prosecution and penalties defined. The Act has remained the basis for all future legislative updates.
• 1942 - Beveridge Report

  Beveridge’s A Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services emphasised the need to slay the five giants. One of which was ‘disease’. It advocated a ‘cradle to grave’ welfare system based on universal national insurance.
• 1945- Family Allowances Act

  5 shillings provided for the second and any subsequent child. The money was paid directly to the mother, in part because she was expected to know what was best for her children, and partly to avoid the father and husband from drinking, smoking or gambling the allowance away.
• 1946 -National Insurance Act

  Extended compulsory insurance for all over sixteen.
• 1946 - National Health Service Act

  Transferred control of voluntary and local authority hospitals, via regional hospital boards to the Ministry Health. Health care was intended to be free at the point of delivery. The remaining vestiges of the Poor Law were abolished.
• 1948

  The National Health Service (NHS) came into operation on the ‘appointed day’ (5 July) establishing a major cornerstone of the Welfare State. A standardised health system, based upon local doctor’s surgeries and hospitals, came into being, replacing the ad hoc and unequal prewar apparatus of health care.
• 1948- National Assistance Act

  This can be seen as the final defence against poverty, as it required local authorities to assess the needs of the poorest, or those with mental or physical problems, in order to provide adequate accommodation and care.
• 1971

  Free milk for school children withdrawn by Margaret Thatcher as education secretary.
• 1975 Health and Safety at Work Act

  Provided a comprehensive system of regulations.
• 1975 Child Benefit Act

  Child benefit replaced family allowances after thirty years of the later system.
• 1990 - National Health Service and Community care Act

  Allowed hospitals to opt out of local authority control and to become self-governing trusts.