Our NHS

An engaging, inclusive history of the NHS, exploring its surprising survivaland the people who have kept it running Shortlisted for the 2024 Wolfson History Prize In recent decades, a wave of appreciation for the NHS has swept across the UK. Britons have clapped for frontline workers and championed the service as a distinctive national achievement. All this has happened in the face of ideological opposition, marketization, and workforce crises. But how did the NHS become what it is today? In this wide-ranging history, Andrew Seaton examines the full story of the NHS. He traces how the service has changed and adapted, bringing together the experiences of patients, staff from Britain and abroad, and the services wider supporters and opponents. He explains not only why it survived the neoliberalism of the late twentieth century but also how it became a key marker of national identity. Seaton emphasizes the resilience of the NHSperpetually in crisis and yet perennially enduringas well as the political values it embodies and the work of those who have tirelessly kept it afloat.