This event starts at 1930 and finishes at 2100.
Research has been a part of the National Health Service since its very early years; Roberta Bivins will discuss two examples of such research (the hearing aid developed specifically with NHS patients in mind, and evidence of how one General Practitioner studied his own practice for clues about child health and and illness). She will also look at the role of the NHS in shaping health research in relation to the genetic blood disorders sickle cell anaemia and thalassaemia. UK genetic researchers were swift to recognise that the arrival of new ethnic communities in the 1950s and 1960s also brought new opportunities for cutting edge research, opportunities that depended to no small degree on the fact that health care in Britain was free for all at the point of delivery. Initially, they may have envisioned their patients more as research substrates than as collaborators. However, by the 1970s, community members themselves began to leverage their political, as well as their biological distinctiveness, to reshape research agendas and priorities in the provision of NHS services. Roberta will lead the conversation to the implications of NHS research for patients and researchers today.
