NHS History Blog
NHS History Blog
Geoffrey Rivett is vice-chair of the governors of Homerton foundation trust and author of From Cradle to Grave: fifty years of the NHS.
Latest posts
The water tower speech
On 9th March 1961 Enoch Powell, the Minister of Health, addressed the annual conference of the National Association of Mental Health.
The Moorgate Tube crash
On 28th February 1975, at 8.46 in the morning, a tube train failed to stop at Moorgate station and ploughed on into a brick wall, compacting the first three coaches into a tangle of metal.
Your life in their hands
On 11 February 1958, the BBC first televised Your Life in Their Hands, presented by Charles Fletcher from the Royal College of Physicians.
The hospital plan
The Hospital Plan will determine for many years to come the broad lines of development of the hospital service.
The most expensive breakfast
On 16th January 2000 Tony Blair was interviewed by Sir David Frost. In what was described as the most expensive breakfast in British history, the PM announced that spending on the health service in the UK would rise, over five years, to the European average.
John Bodkin Adams
John Bodkin Adams was responsible for a new concept in medical management - “doing a Bodkin”.
Artificial heart implantation
On 1 December 1982, a snowy night in Salt Lake City, Utah, Dr Barney Clark’s heart was giving out and he was moved up the operating list to receive the first total replacement of an artificial heart in an emergency all night operation.
The founding of the RCGP
On 19 November 1952 the College of General Practitioners was established quietly at a meeting at the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries.
The Stragboli letter
On 24 November 1965 Lord Strabogli wrote to The Times. Public concern about the treatment of the elderly in hospitals had been growing, though apparently the government saw no problems.
The Abortion Act
On 27 October 1967 a private member’s bill, introduced by David Steel but backed by the government, was, after a heated debate and a free vote, passed. When the act came into effect, it made abortion legal in Great Britain.
The Griffiths report
The 1983 Griffiths review of management was the direct outcome of the chaos of industrial action.
Pioneering scans
On 1 October 1971 Jamie Ambrose, a consultant radiologist at Atkinson Morley’s Hospital in Wimbledon, made medical history by carrying out the first computed tomography scan on a live patient, revealing a detailed image of a brain tumour.
A crisis in general practice
The Collings Report published in 1950 led some to feel general practice was past saving and not worth the effort.
The history of health inequalities
August 1980 will forever be remembered by public health doctors for it was then that the Department of Health published the Black report.
Born on the 25th of July
The world’s first “test tube baby”, Louise Brown, was born shortly before midnight in Oldham and District General Hospital on 25 July 1978.
Smoking's shady past
On 26 June 1954 the main article in the British Medical Journal was on the mortality of doctors in relation to their smoking habits.
