The National Health Service was launched on 5 July 1948 by the Labour government of Clement Attlee, with Aneurin Bevan as Minister of Health. It brought hospitals, GPs, dentists and opticians into a single service available to everyone, free at the point of use, funded from general taxation. Its founding principle — care based on need, not on ability to pay — remains in place today.
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The NHS was the centrepiece of a wider welfare state inspired by William Beveridge's 1942 report, which identified the "five giant evils" of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. National Insurance, family allowances, council housing and free secondary education for all followed in the same period.
You may be asked which year the NHS was founded (1948), who was Minister of Health (Aneurin Bevan), or whose report inspired the welfare state (Beveridge).
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