For the last five months, the People’s History of the NHS team have been working with the production company 7Wonder to create a new three-part series for BBC Four, The People’s History of the NHS. It has been an amazing experience to step behind the TV production curtain into the new world of reading script structures and to think about how our research can be presented visually and on screen. We have also enjoyed working with the producers to weave historical complexity and nuance through the scripts, while also ensuring that they remain clear, provocative, and exciting.
As part of this collaboration, 7Wonder have also asked all of their interviewees a series of questions that, in different ways, explore the subject that is at the heart of our ‘People’s History’– the deep meaning and cultural significance of the NHS in everyday British life:
The production company have kindly edited us a series of clips answering these questions and we’ll be releasing them — and lots of links to new and existing materials on our website — in the run-up to the launch of the TV series on BBC Four in July.
Our first two videos are from interviews with Lorraine Leeson and Peter Dunn, both artists. Looking through these videos some fascinating themes and parallels already emerge. The first clear theme is the belief that the NHS represents universality – of access, of treatment, but also in terms of representing widely held egalitarian values or, for Lorraine Leeson, rights held not by virtue of being British but by virtue of being human. These values and rights evoke feelings of passion and pride in our interviewees, expressed explicitly and implicitly. These themes also come out clearly in the results of our survey for activists, and in the campaign banners produced by Leeds Hospital Alert – the latter of which may be compared to the brilliant art which Leeson and Dunn made in defence of Bethnal Green Hospital in the 1970s.
Notably, these videos also show a sense in which many people are very familiar with the history of the NHS – the turning point of 1948 is often referenced in such interviews and at our public events. This shows that knowledge of history can operate as a form of ownership over the concept of the NHS, and also as a measure of how information about this institution’s history is ingrained in our daily lives and medical spaces. Personal histories are entwined with political and social ones in these accounts. Lorraine Leeson recalls her first memory of the NHS as collecting orange juice from a clinic, while Peter Dunn discusses having grown up with the NHS, being born in the post-war generation but also because his mother and sister were nurses. This raises fascinating questions about how different generations may feel about the NHS, which we have been discussing with our undergraduate students.
We are glad that our interview questions are already evoking different responses and also the expression of emotion and feelings, and will be continuing to release a small number of videos and to discuss their findings week by week alongside new calls asking YOU to give us your answers to the five questions above.
We’d be delighted to hear your comments in the mean time on the questions raised, or to answer any questions about the documentary and collaborative process!
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What does the NHS mean to you? A place where you can obtain the care you need to help resolve most of the time your health conditions (not everyone survives though)
What is your first memory of the NHS? I had my tonsil out at Burton Hospital – it was a mixed sex ward with single sex bays and more younger and middle aged people rather than old folk. I remember looking forward to the newspaper trolley coming round and the hospital radio. I remember some very nice young english men LOL I was only 12! I finished 6th form and started training as a nurse in 1984 and loved the going into the school of nursing – learning about theory then going onto a ward for 2 months, then learning about surgical nursing, working on the ward for 2 months etc etc. It was very hard work and busy shifts and the matrons were very strict as I recall but also fair. I remember getting nervous on the ward when the matrons/sister would watch and assess practical techniques like wound cleaning, inserting a catheter etc.
What would you do for the NHS? modernise the buildings and equipment is updated to the latest technology. I would like to see more staff involved in listening to good and not so good patient and carer experiences. I would like appreciative inquiry methods become mandatory to support motivating staff by looking at what goes well everyday and learn from those times when things are not so good.
What will the NHS look like 70 years from now? Modern buildings, equipment, one stop service for all tests done within 2 days and people being seen by specialists with 3 days. I would like to see more clinics with multiple specialists at hand to see those people who have complex health conditions so they are assessed by different specialists sooner rather than having to wait.
Do you love the NHS or do you love free health care? Both
Thank you for these responses! I particularly enjoy your first memory – really interesting to hear about the vividness of remembering people and the hospital radio too!
All the best,
Jenny