To be sure, by the 1950 General Election, the Labour Party sought to tap into the nascent popularity of the service. One colour election poster of a family gazing up at a young girl, topped with the headline ‘Labour’s Health Service Covers Everyone’ provided one example of such manoeuvring. Our Stories is a beautiful and heart-warming collection of tales of the rich history of the NHS, told through the ordinary people who have experienced it and who have turned it into the beating heart of our country. The NHS: Britain’s National Health Service, 1948-2020 (Susan Cohen)

Association of Scottish Antimicrobial Pharmacists: Kirsteen Hill, Antimicrobial/HIV Pharmacist, NHS Tayside and Fiona McDonald, Specialist Pharmacist - Antibiotics, NHS Grampian An engaging, inclusive history of the NHS, exploring its surprising survival – and the people who have kept it running in the face of ideological opposition, marketization, and workforce crises. A provocative, deeply-researched explanation of how the NHS—seemingly in perpetual crisis—has endured over the past 75 years. Seaton’s study is an important corrective to overarching accounts of the triumph of neoliberalism in Britain, a testament to the power of unintended consequences in policy-making, and a must-read about the strange survival of social democracy and everyday communalism into the twenty-first century”.Britain’s National Health Service remains a cultural icon—a symbol of excellent, egalitarian care since its founding more than seven decades ago. Yet its success was hardly guaranteed, as Andrew Seaton makes clear in this elegantly written, highly original history of an institution that survived numerous crises to become a model for the democratic welfare state and the very antithesis of the health inequities we face today as Americans. A brilliant, thought-provoking portrait.”—David M. Oshinsky, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Polio The Welshman’s famous statement that the service represented the ‘envy of the world’ was not empty grandstanding, but rather a serious statement about how Britain might inspire others in the organisation of medical services and regain international influence at a moment when decolonisation undercut older claims to authority. Florence Nightingale was an activist, a social reformer, a statistician, and a bold nurse who defied stifling British conventions to change history. An indisputable pioneer, Nightingale died in 1910 aged of 90, leaving behind an inspirational legacy that benefits everyone’s medical care 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 service’s 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 NHS—perpetually “in crisis” and yet perennially enduring—as well as the political values it embodies and the work of those who have tirelessly kept it afloat. Seaton’s) analysis is sharp and compelling and makes a considerable contribution to the scholarship surrounding what he terms ‘Britain’s best-loved institution’”.

Hardman is a meticulous journalist with a gift for storytelling. She doesn’t let her admiration for the NHS as both a political achievement and a healthcare provider impede the exposition of its flaws. She modulates her tone with subtle precision, using controlled fury for scandals born of callous neglect and ironic detachment when transporting the reader into cabinet discussions where a health secretary’s vanity conflicts with a chancellor’s parsimony.To mark the 75th anniversary of the NHS, the author of Our NHS: A History of Britain's Best-Loved Institution discusses the history of a service that now stands as a touchstone of British national identity. From the experiences of patients on hospital wards, to the stories of medical professionals arriving to work in the NHS from the former empire, the institution not only became central but survived when so many other parts of the welfare state or public industries declined after the 1980s. Thinking about the NHS's history offers fresh ways of reflecting on the challenges facing the service now and in the years to come. Britain’s National Health Service remains a cultural icon—a symbol of excellent, egalitarian care since its founding more than seven decades ago. Yet its success was hardly guaranteed, as Andrew Seaton makes clear in this elegantly written, highly original history of an institution that survived numerous crises to become a model for the democratic welfare state and the very antithesis of the health inequities we face today as Americans. A brilliant, thought-provoking portrait”. Blair claimed (incorrectly) in 1998 that Britain was ‘one of the few countries where they feel your pulse before they feel your wallet if you collapse in the street’. this is a very personal account of the NHS and there’s an intimacy to it that can be very engrossing too”.

Professional Secretary, ScotMARAP: Ysobel Gourlay, Lead Antimicrobial Pharmacist, NHS GG&C Antimicrobial Management Team representatives Andrew's first book, Our NHS: A History of Britain's Best-Loved Institution (Yale University Press 2023) is an expansive history of a world-famous universal health care system. Through the perspectives of patients, medical practitioners, trade unions, overseas health experts, and assorted cultural figures, the book explains how the service became an integral part of British identity and why it survived the rise of neoliberalism. In doing so, the book calls attention to the endurance of social democracy in a nation where this form of politics is commonly depicted as vanquished by the late-twentieth century. Our NHS has received positive coverage in The Financial Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Lancet, and The Literary Review.How Britain fell in love with socialised medicine, and whether the relationship can endure, is the subject of two books published to coincide with the service’s 75th birthday. In Fighting for Life, Isabel Hardman arranges the history into 12 themes, defined as the “battles that made our NHS”.

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In his even-handed analysis, Seaton argues that what is remarkable about the NHS is that it…remains a beacon of social democratic principles”. Before joining UCL in October 2023, Andrew was the Plumer Junior Research Fellow in History at St Anne's College, University of Oxford. He trained in both the UK and the USA, gaining a doctorate in History from New York University (NYU) in 2021. Antibiotic resistance is a major global public health issue and a threat to the future of healthcare. Without effective antibiotics, many routine treatments will become increasingly dangerous.