Main description:

The National Health Service has provided Britain's healthcare since 1948. This institution has been the subject of tense political debate since its inception and has undergone a number of complex reforms and restructures. But the meanings of the NHS are not only - or even primarily - lived out in politics. Nearly every Briton comes into contact with the NHS - from cradle to grave - and this system of healthcare shapes society, culture and everyday life. This book charts these multiple meanings, looking at the NHS as a site of work, activism and consumerism, as a space and in cultural representations. Looking in these ways, the book shows how and why the NHS has become a symbol of Britishness and an object of fierce protectiveness, even love, today. -- .

Contents:

Introduction - Jennifer Crane and Jane Hand
Part I: Work
1 The making of 'NHS staff' as a worker identity, 1948-85 - Jack Saunders
2 Sick notes are a waste of time: doctors' labour and medical certification at the birth of the NHS - Gareth Millward
Part II: Activism
3 'Loving' the NHS: social surveys and activist feelings - Jennifer Crane
4 The everyday work of hospital campaigns: public knowledge and activism in the UK's National Health Services - Ellen Stewart, Kathy Dodworth and Angelo Ercia
Part III: Consumerism
5 Consuming health? Health education and the British public in the 1980s - Alex Mold
6 Customers who don't buy anything!: the introduction of free dispensing at Boots the Chemists - Katey Logan
Part IV: Space
7 The cultural significance of space and place in the NHS - Angela Whitecross
8 'Bright-while-you-wait'? Waiting rooms and the National Health Service, c. 1948-58 - Martin D. Moore
Part V: Representation
9 Representation of the NHS in the arts and popular culture - Mathew Thomson
10 'If it hadn't been for the doctor, I think I would have killed myself': ensuring adolescent knowledge and access to healthcare in the age of Gillick - Hannah Elizabeth
Part VI: International
11 'A spawning of the nether pit'? Welfare, warfare and American visions of Britain's National Health Service, 1948-58 - Roberta Bivins
Epilogue: 'I'm afraid [,] there's no NHS' - Sally Sheard
Index -- .