Extract
As the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2018, Mark Nicholls looks at how it has evolved over the last seven decades
Much maligned, often at the heart of political wrangles and disputes and particularly during election time, the NHS remains one of the great British institutions and still endeavours—though a little more loosely than in previous years—to provide healthcare free at the point of service.
It has now reached the age of ‘three score years and ten’, an ‘olde English’ adage of 70 and what was considered to be a good lifespan. The NHS has come a long way since its inauguration in 1948. It has changed and grown significantly and been at the core of much innovative and ground-breaking medical research and treatments.
In terms of a workforce, the comparisons tend to be with the
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as the world’s largest employers. As of January 2018, the headcount for NHS personnel was 1 205 949, up from 1 184 881 of January 2017.
