The National Health Service as we know it is was born in 1948 offering free health care and is still going strong

The roots for the National Health Service (NHS) can be traced back to post First World War Britain.  The army had shown what organised medical services could achieve and in 1919 the Ministry of Health was created.  For three decades various changes in healthcare took place leading to the creation of the National Health Service.

The National Health Service began on July 5 1948, not to great fanfare and not with a massive expansion of hospital building. It had the same services as before but now the poorest members of society, who previously had been unable to afford healthcare and had to rely on home remedies or the charitable nature of a doctor, would be able to receive free, reliable treatment. 

Hospitals now became part of an organised structure with 14 regional boards covering the country. The family doctor was the first point of contact for most patients and if the patient needed any other treatment they could be referred on to another part of the NHS for more specialised care. Also part of the NHS were opticians for eye care and pharmacists for over the counter medicines and prescriptions.

More than six decades later and the NHS is the same organisation in that it is still free at the point of delivery. However in terms of funding and volume of people served, it is completely different.  In 2010 the NHS is the world’s largest publicly funded health service. It is also the fourth largest employer in the world, employing over 1.7 million people worldwide. Only the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Wal-Mart and the Indian Railways employ more.

Of those 1.7 million, 120,000 are hospital doctors, another 40,000 are GPs, 400,000 are nurses and 25,000 are ambulance staff. The NHS in England alone employs 1.3 million.

On its launch in 1948 the NHS had an approximate budget of £280m, that compares to £105bn today.  The NHS in 2010 deals with a million patients every 36 hours, while each GP in over 10,000 practices country-wide sees an average of 140 patients a week.

In 1948 there were about 93,000 nurses working in the NHS compared to 400,000 today. There were less than 8,000 GPs compared to 40,000 today and there were 6,000 hospital consultants compared to nearly 34,000 today.  When the NHS was created it took charge of 480,000 beds; it now has less than half that figure despite treating more people.

Both men and women live on average 10 years longer than when the NHS was introduced in 1948.  Additionally infant mortality is much improved. In 1948 there were 34 deaths per 1,000 live births in England and Wales and that figure is now down to just five deaths.

Overall the organisation does an excellent job, but often NHS complaints lead to bad publicity because when things go wrong medically the consequences can be catastrophic for the patients and their families.