Simplicity itself ……….

 Seen on a pub wall.

Location; pub wall in Menai Bridge

Picture; Simplicity itself ……….2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

75 years of the story of the NHS ..... at Trafford General on July 21st

Now, l am a baby boomer and l was born just one year after the NHS was established meaning we have been constant companions over the last 73 years.  

It has seen me through heaps of minor illnesses, two cancers and looked after my sons and grandchildren, so I have a lot to thank it for.

And to take every opportunity to explore its history.

All of which is by way of an invitation to a look at the story of the NHS through pictures, memories and conversations with staff and local historians at Trafford General Hospital, which as Park Hospital is where it all started in 1948.

The event has been organised by The NHS Retirement Fellowship.

This is a registered charity, which is the organisation for NHS retirees and their partners. 

Offering social, leisure, educational and welfare activities, the Fellowship has more than 100 branches across England, Scotland and Wales.  Established in 1978 with over 8,000 members, we provide a bridge between life in employment and new opportunities in retirement. Members enjoy a range of activities and interests meeting former colleagues and making new friends.

So that is it …. All you have to do is come along and celebrate with us the 75 years of the NHS.

Pictures; Poster for the NHS at 75, NHS Retirement Fellowship, and seen on a pub wall in Meania Bridge, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Who stole the National Health Service?

Now I am all for revisiting historical events, people and movements, and explore how modern scholarship and forgotten research can offer up new perspectives.

Aneurin Bevan, 1952 

Equally it is a given, that history can be used to present a “distorted” story which advances the interests of a section of the population, the dogma of a political party, along with the ambitions of populist national leaders.

But I have to say I was flabbergasted to day when I came across a timeline for the NHS, which suggested that the Labour politician Aneurin Bevan who is credited with the establishment of the NHS is relegated to a bit player, in advance of Winston Churchill and William Beveridge, who presented a plan during the war to eliminate the “five giants” which would hamper the post war reconstruction of Britain.  

These included "Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness".  Beveridge’s proposals to eliminate the five would form the basis for the Welfare State.

So, yes Beveridge along with  Bevan should naturally be on the time line, but appearing three times was Winston Churchill, who according to the script was “The Tory PM who commissioned the Beveridge Report. proposed The NHS in his election manifesto and pumped more money in than ever Bevan did”.

Labour Party Poster, 1948

And so there you have it, the author of the timeline has stolen the NHS for the Tories.

Now it was actually Arthur Greenwood a Labour MP and Minister in the Coalition Government who announced the creation of an inter departmental committee which would carry out  “a survey of the existing national schemes of social insurance and allied services, including workmen’s compensation and make recommendations” *

Added to which the idea that there should be a national health system along with a change in the provision of social care had long been advocated by the Labour Movement and had already existed in Wales in the form of the Tredegar Workmen's Medical Aid and Sick Relief Fund, which had been established in 1890, in Tredegar in South Wales.**

And which in return for contributions from its members provided health care free at the point of use.

Interestingly our timeline didn’t mention that the Conservative Party under the leadership of Winston Churchill voted 21 times against the formation of the NHS, including the second and third readings of the bill.

Nor does our timeline recognize that the NHS was established just three years after the war, when there were huge demands for limited resources, which had to be set against the backdrop of food shortages, and a terrible winter.

NHS spending, 1948-54

And by the time Churchill and the Tories came back to power in 1951, the worst of the immediate post war recovery problems were over, and the economy was set fair.

Nor does the timeline acknowledge the awful state of health  amongst the majority of working people.

In its first full year there had been a huge demand in the number of free prescriptions issued for medicine and spectacles and in the rise in the cost of the NHS from £327.8 million in 1948-49 to £430.3 million by 1953-54.***

And that I suspect indicated just how much of a need there was from people who had not been able to afford even basic health care under pre war Tory Governments.

NHS spending as a % of GNP

But when the figures were adjusted for inflation and judged as a % of GNP spending actually fell from 3.51% in 1948-49 to 3.24% in 1953-54.

So I rather think our timeline is an attempt to rehabilitate a present Tory Government who has not distinguished itself during the pandemic, and lurches from one crisis to another.

By all means revisit and challenge historical shibboleths, but at least do it honestly.

Picture; Aneurin Bevan and his wife Jenny Lee in Corwen, 1952, Geoff Charles, made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication , Labour Party Poster, 1948

*Summary of the Beveridge Report, presented to the War Cabinet, November 1942, http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/small/cab-66-31-wp-42-547-27.pdf

**Out of Tredegar ...... Aneurin Bevan, 70 years of the NHS and the Welsh health service which preceded it, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/05/out-of-tredegar-aneurin-bevan-70-years.html

***Source Report of the Guillebaud Committee Parliament. Report of the committee of enquiry into the cost of the national health service. (Chairman: CW Guillebaud.) Cmd 9663. London: HMSO,  1956, quoted from National Health Service History, Geoffrey Rivett, http://www.nhshistory.net/Chapter%201.htm#Reviewing_the_NHS

The subscription .... a final request and the Hospital for Incurables

 I am looking at a request to renew an annual subscription.

It is dated 1894 and was for £1. 1/- and was addressed to the “Trustees of the late Earl of Stamford”.

Now there is nothing unusual about such a request, although it was dated October and came with an additional comment in red that “As our financial years closes on the 31st inst., the favour of a remittance during the early part of the month will greatly facilitate the making of our books for the audit”, which would suggest that the Trustees were more than a little late in paying up.

And this would be a particular concern to the secretary a Mr. James Ferguson who was charged with administration of the Hospital for Incurables, whose head office was at 7 St Peter’s Square, and who ran a “Home For In Patients,  Mauldeth Heaton Mersey”, a “Branch For Females Only, Walmersley House, near Bury” and a “Dispensary for Out patients, Ardwick Green”.

All of which is a reminder that before the NHS, hospitals relied heavily on donations and almost all medical care came with a charge.

In the case of the Hospital for Incurables, which had been established in  1872 at Ardwick Green, it “'aimed to give permanent relief 'to such persons as are hopelessly disqualified for the duties of life by disease, accident or deformity'. 

The hospital would not take patients who would be taken elsewhere, for example lunatics, blind people or paupers. As its name suggests, the hospital was a regional charity, aimed at all the Northern Counties. However, as the only other hospital of its type was in London, the Northern Counties Hospital took patients from all over England”*.

And here I have to declare that the full history of the hospital is drawn from Archives Hub, which aims to assist “All UK researchers interested in using primary source material” and "brings together descriptions of thousands of the UK’s archive collections. Representing over 330 institutions across the country, the Archives Hub is an effective way to discover unique and often little-known sources to support your research. New descriptions are added every week, often representing collections being made available for the first time”.**

I could just lift the whole of their description of the charity and the hospital but instead suggest you visit the site by following the link.

Instead I will explore this particular document which was acquired this week by old friend David Harrop, who lives in Heaton Mersey and was drawn to the subscription request because of the charity’s hospital in Heaton Mersey.

This was Mauldeth House, a building which has a long history and which has been researched in some detail by Allan Russell.***

 And for those who want to follow up on the Hospital, the archive recotrds are held at the University of Manchester Library, Reference, GB 133 MMC/9/14, formerly GB 133 J b 10 and consist of 9 items covering the years 1872-1934.

Location; Greater Manchester

Pictures; subscription request for Hospital for Incurables, 1894, and Mauldeth House, date unknown, from the collection of David Harrop

* Hospital for Incurables, https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/b489e047-e6b1-3992-aaa3-5e40e2147729?component=f9012991-d61a-38aa-b4eb-889fee33e835

** Archives Hub, https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/introduction/

*** Mauldeth Home for Incurables, https://thehistoryofstockportin100halls.wordpress.com/tag/mauldeth-home-for-incurables/?fbclid=IwAR2yBUgR1Tm57OCXAgwW72jKsXJtMGkyG19yR3ypELSZWqxLRcLP1Hpoqa8

Today .......... To your good health ! ....... turning points in the story of medical care .... the talk

Now, if you were to stop ten people in the street and ask them what has advanced public health over the last century, the answers will be varied.

Top of the list I guess will be the creation of the National Health Service.

It is 70 years old and while it creaks in places, it is still a byword for all that a country should do for it’s sick, offering free care at the point of delivery.

For others it will be the mix of technology and spectacular new surgical approaches which allow us to transplant organs, and perform keyhole procedures which were only seen as fantasy just a few decades ago.

These are in direct contrast to operations undertaken without anaesthetics and antiseptics which were the norm before the middle of the 19th century and lead to the four minute operation, which aimed to slice open cut out and sew up, before the patient died of shock, loss of blood or contracted an infection.

And in turn, led to the famous “four minuter” with the 300% mortality record, which included the patient, one of the assistants and an observer.

But that is for a story from Tom Grimshaw’s talk on Thursday at Chorlton Good Neighbours in St Ninian’s Church on Wilbraham Road at 1.30pm.

Along with those spectacular advances in surgery, Tom will reflect on the steady advance of public health, which has been delivered through improved sanitation, clean drinking water, the defeat of a battery of infectious diseases, and better nutrition.

So it’s all there and more, on Thursday at Chorlton Good Neighbours in St Ninian’s Church on Wilbraham Road at 1.30pm.

Location; Chorlton

Picture, from an 18th century manual on surgery, and National Health leaflet, 1948, National Health Service Western Isles Health Board

Travels with my cancer ....... in praise of the NHS

In the four and bit months since I was diagnosed with cancer, I have been tested, advised on what was to happen, operated on and sent home from hospital.

I won’t say that my feet didn’t touch the ground but it was a roller coaster of activity which now just awaits the results to see if it has spread and review the options.

All of us deal with the news and the subsequent period of adjustment in different ways.

We chose to tell just the family and close friends, not out of any shame or desire to be secret but just because that fitted how I felt.

That said I was not averse to friends telling friends, and reflected that at some point I would write about it.

Of course what I would say remained to be carefully worked out.

There are some very moving and illuminating contributions about experiencing cancer, from blogs to Radio Four conversations and in that well tried practice, that if someone has done it and done it well I see no reason to repeat the process.

Instead, I am reflecting on the care and the continued care I am receiving from the NHS, which is not to depreciate other health services in other places.

I have family and friends who have and continue to receive the most excellent care from Italian and French hospitals but I was here in Manchester and it was the NHS who looked after me.

The speed with which I was fast tracked by my GP to the series of tests, the preliminary conversation with the specialist, and the eventual operation and after care cannot be faulted and underlines that basic principle that at a time when the individual is in crisis, the principle of free medical care at the point of need remains paramount and the measure of a civilized and just country.

We all know that the NHS creeks at times and in places, but to anyone faced with an illness it is there.

At which point I could start singling out people to thank, but to do so would be a very long list and not fair, because while I know the name of my consultant, and Macmillan nurses, the remaining team of doctors, nurses, technicians and cleaners along with kitchen staff, are pretty much unknown to me.

The important thing was that they were there, did their bit and for that Tina,  my family and friends will be thankful.

So ....... less the historical account of the NHS, or a detailed personal description of my cancer, and instead just that simple observation, that 70 years after its inception the NHS continues to offer first rate care, continuing to deliver its three core principles to meet the needs of everyone, to be free at the point of delivery, and based on clinical need, not ability to pay.

And that must continue to be defended against all who would look at the cost, or try to promote an increase in the scale of a private medical service.

Pictures; logos from the NHS, and for once I have not sought copyright