Abstract
The hospital and specialist services that existed in England and Wales in 1948 were the product of private charity, municipal endeavour and war-time exigency. Private charity had produced the voluntary hospitals, which ranged from the large teaching hospitals, having the benefit of modern equipment and a full complement of consultant staff, to the small cottage hospitals, usually staffed by general practitioners, and lacking all but the most essential facilities. In all, the NHS took control of 1145 voluntary hospitals with 90 000 beds on the 5 July 1948.1
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Notes and References
B. Abel-Smith, The Hospitals 1800–1948 (London: Heinemann, 1964) p. 491.
R. M. Titmuss, Problems of Social Policy (London: HMSO, 1950) p. 460.
The surveys were summarised in Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, The Hospital Surveys: The Domesday Book of the Hospital Service (London: Oxford University Press, 1946).
H. Eason, R. V. Clark, and W. H. Harper, Hospital Survey: The Hospital Services of the Yorkshire Area (London: HMSO, 1945).
H. Eckstein, The English Health Service (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1958), pp. 62–3.
A. J. Willcocks, The Creation of the National Health Service (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967) p. 68.
A Bevan, In Place of Fear (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1961) new edition, pp. 99–100.
B. Abel-Smith and R. M. Titmuss, The Cost of the National Health Service (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956).
B. Davies, Social Needs and Resources in Local Services (London: Michael Joseph, 1968) p. 206.
D. S. Lees, Health Through Choice (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1961).
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© 1981 Christopher Ham
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Ham, C. (1981). Background and Overview: the Creation and Evolution of the NHS. In: Policy-making in the National Health Service. Studies in Social Policy. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05525-8_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05525-8_2
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