NHS' 70th anniversary: Why was the NHS created? Who created it plus timeline
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It's been 70 years since the NHS came into being and it's been providing free at point of use healthcare ever since.
The NHS has grown since it's noble beginnings and is now the UK’s largest employer, with over 1.5 million staff from all over the world and more than 350 different careers.
It runs on a budget of £126.3bn (2018-19) providing reassurance, care and much needed services.
With celebrations running this week to mark the big milestone for NHS70 we've taken a look back at it's beginnings.
Why was the NHS created?
Before we had the NHS people had to pay for their healthcare. Apart from a few voluntary hospitals, hospitals charged patients for the care they received.
Most people agreed before WW2 that health insurance should cover dependants of the wage-earner and that local hospitals and voluntary hospitals should merge.
Then a 1944 white paper proposed local authorities controlled voluntary hospitals.
When Labour came to power in 1945 Bevan thought the local authorities were too small to manage hospitals - instead he created a new hospital service bringing it all under one banner.
In his book, In Place of Fear, Bevan stated: “Society becomes more wholesome, more serene, and spiritually healthier, if it knows that its citizens have at the back of their consciousness the knowledge that not only themselves, but all their fellows, have access, when ill, to the best that medical skill can provide.”
The NHS in England and Wales was created by the National Health Service Act 1946.
The National Health Service Bill passed through the House of Commons easily, despite Tory opposition, at second reading on 2 May 1946 by 359 votes to 172.
Reflecting on the impact of the NHS, Bevan said: “I believe it will lift the shadow from millions of homes.”
Timeline
July 5, 1948 – the NHS was launched by Health Secretary Aneurin Bevan at Park Hospital in Manchester – it's now called the Trafford General Hospital.
1952 - Prescription charges introduced
1953 DNA structure revealed
1958 – Polio and diphtheria vaccinations programme was launched
1960 – first UK kidney transplant took place at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary
1961 - The Pill made available
1967 - Abortion Act
1968 - First NHS heart transplant
1972 - CT scans introduced
1978 – World’s first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, is born
1979 – first successful bone marrow transplant on a child takes place
1986 – first Aids health campaign
1987 - Professor Sir Roy Calne and Professor John Wallwork carry out the world's first liver, heart and lung transplant at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge
1988 – breast screening was introduced
1991 - NHS trusts established
1994 - Organ donor register set up
2002 –first successful gene therapy
2012 – first person in the UK gets a hand transplant