The twentieth-century world, Year 11: the Liberal reforms, Beveridge and the NHS (Health and the people option)

More than a quarter of the people lived in poverty

HintClose to the figure Charles Booth had found in London.

The whyCharles Booth's survey of London had reached a similar result. Rowntree showed that the problem was not confined to the capital, and that the main causes were low wages, old age and sickness, not laziness.

A large share of volunteers were unfit to serve

HintThe army's own doctors turned many away.

The whyPoliticians worried about whether Britain could defend its empire or compete with Germany's industry. Concern for 'national efficiency' became a reason for reform.

Free school meals

HintA hungry child cannot learn.

The whyIt was followed by medical inspections in schools. These were among the first of the Liberal government's social reforms.

1908

HintThe first payments were made at the start of the following year.

The whyIt gave up to five shillings a week to people over 70 on low incomes, paid from taxes. For the first time the old had an income that did not depend on the workhouse or charity.

Sick pay and medical treatment

HintWorker, employer and the state each paid into the scheme.

The whyIt covered wage earners only, not their families. Sick pay was ten shillings a week for the first thirteen weeks. A second part of the Act gave unemployment pay in certain trades.

1942

HintIn the middle of the Second World War.

The whyIt proposed that the state should protect everyone 'from the cradle to the grave'. It became a best-seller. The war had made people readier to accept government action and to expect a better country afterwards.

squalor; idleness

HintOne is about filthy housing, the other about having no work.

The whyDisease was to be met by a free health service, want by national insurance, ignorance by schooling, and the two in the blanks by better homes and full employment.

5 July 1948

HintThree years, almost to the month, after Labour's election victory.

The whyFrom that day, medical, dental and nursing care was free to everyone at the point of use, paid for from taxes. A leaflet sent to every household explained that anyone, rich or poor, could use it.

Aneurin Bevan

HintA Welsh former coal miner.

The whyHe brought more than 2,500 hospitals under national ownership and negotiated hard with the doctors, many of whom opposed his plan. He later said that he had won over the hospital consultants by 'stuffing their mouths with gold'.

People live longer, and new treatments and technology are expensive

HintSuccess creates more patients; science creates more options.

The whyIts founders hoped that a healthier nation would need less care. Instead an older population has more long-term illness. Charges for prescriptions were brought in as early as 1952, and how to pay for health care has been argued over ever since.