Undergraduate Course: Histories of the NHS: A National Religion? (HIST10523)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The National Health Service is supposed to be Britain's 'national religion'. Where did that devotion come from? Do all citizens of the United Kingdom feel equally invested? And will the public remain in love forever? This course tries to answer these questions through an exploration of the social, cultural, and emotional histories of the NHS. |
| Course description |
The NHS is a major part of many people's lives. It's the UK's largest single employer, we're all likely to engage with its services at some point in our lives; it's a huge political talking point; and it plays a big role in British national identity. And yet, you might not have spent much time considering its history. This course will not only provide you with a general understanding of the NHS's political history, but also acquaint you with its complex social dynamics, its cultural representations, and the fraught emotions it has evoked over its 75-year-history.
Together we'll read a mix of scholarly essays and books; we'll watch films clips and TV episodes; and explore primary sources like newspaper articles, political manifestos, diaries, letters, and novels. While you will leave this course with a solid grasp of the history of NHS policy and how the service functions, this is primarily a course about the social, cultural, and emotional past. We'll consider themes of gender, race, chronic disease and disability, as well as social class, and reflect on who has been excluded from the NHS, both historically and today. As a result, you'll not only come away with lots more knowledge about the history of modern Britain and its welfare state, but also a new understanding of the fraught, emotive, and politicised narratives that circulate about the NHS. We will think about how the history of the health service has shaped the present, and consider how the past has been instrumentalised in service of certain aims, and political and professional identities.
Content note: The study of History inevitably involves the study of difficult topics that we encourage students to approach in a respectful, scholarly, and sensitive manner. Nevertheless, we remain conscious that some students may wish to prepare themselves for the discussion of difficult topics. In particular, the course organiser has outlined that the following topics may be discussed in this course, whether in class or through required or recommended primary and secondary sources: sexism, homophobia, racism, racial violence, death, disease, deprivation, childbirth, miscarriage, suicide, and Covid 19. While this list indicates sensitive topics students are likely to encounter, it is not exhaustive because course organisers cannot entirely predict the directions discussions may take in tutorials or seminars, or through the wider reading that students may conduct for the course.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | A pass or passes in 40 credits of first level historical courses or equivalent and a pass or passes in 40 credits of second level historical courses or equivalent.
Students should only be enrolled on this course with approval from the History Honours Programme Administrator. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 3 History courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. Applicants should note that, as with other popular courses, meeting the minimum does NOT guarantee admission.
** as numbers are limited, visiting students should contact the Visiting Student Office directly for admission to this course ** |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2024/25, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework:
1500-word source analysis (30%)
3500-word essay (70%) |
| Feedback |
Students are expected to discuss their coursework with the Course Organiser at least once prior to submission, and are encouraged to do so more often. Meetings can take place with the Course Organiser during their published office hours or by appointment. Students will also receive feedback on their coursework, and will have the opportunity to discuss that feedback further with the Course Organiser. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Discuss the history of the NHS with an in-depth understanding of its origins, challenges, and representations.
- Analyse many different types of primary source material, including novels, television programmes, and public information films.
- Apply this knowledge and these skills to the study of other themes and issues in modern British history, as well as the history of other periods and places.
- Take part productively in exchanges of ideas on the theme of the NHS's history, also using different media, registers and forms of communication.
- Demonstrate a high degree of autonomy and resourcefulness when working alone, as well as an appropriate level of scholarly maturity when working with others.
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Reading List
Andrew Seaton, Our NHS: A History of Britain's Best-Loved Institution, (Yale University Press, 2023)
People's History of the NHS -- a website put together by the Cultural History of the NHS
Richard Gordon, Doctor in the House, (Michael Joseph, 1952)
Jennifer Crane and Jane Hand, (eds), Posters, Protest and Prescriptions: Cultural Histories of the National Health Service in Britain (Manchester University Press, 2022)
Roberta Bivins, 'Picturing Race in the British National Health Service, 1948-1988', Twentieth Century British History, Vol 28, 1, (March 2017): doi: 10.1093/tcbh/hww059
Jennifer Crane, 'Save Our NHS: Defending the NHS and Reassessing the 1980s', Contemporary British History, 33 (1) (2019), pp. 52-74.
Jack Saunders, 'Emotions, social practices and the changing composition of class, race and gender in the National Health Service, 1970-79', History Workshop Journal, 88 (Autumn 2019), 204-228
NHS at 70: Voices From the First NHS Hospital - https://vimeo.com/257741617
NHS on Film - https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/collection/nhs-on-film
Ellen Stewart, How Britain Loves the NHS: Practices of Care and Contestation, (Policy Press, 2023)
Cal Flynn, The History of the NHS, Wellcome Collection - https://wellcomecollection.org/series/WyjG4ycAACrGnmBX
This is Going to Hurt: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0b6k5gx/this-is-going-to-hurt |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Graduates of this course will be able to:
demonstrate familiarity with some of the main concepts, sources and works of scholarship relevant to the history of the NHS and modern British history more broadly.
process and combine this material with a degree of historical imagination, also while considering the relationship between the past and the present.
develop an independent project using the sources and approaches encountered during the course and present it in different written ways.
be able to package your historical research for more public consumption.
discuss scholarly arguments and evidence about the NHS and its history with your peers in a sustained, coherent, and collaborative fashion. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Agnes Arnold-Forster
Tel:
Email: Agnes.Arnold-Forster@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Ksenia Gorlatova
Tel: (0131 6)50 8349
Email: Ksenia.Gorlatova@ed.ac.uk |
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