Cultural History of the NHS (HI34D)

 
Tutor: Professor Mathew Thomson

Office: FAB3.69
Email: M.Thomson@warwick.ac.uk
Office Hours: Fridays 11-12 and 1-2
Seminars: Not running in 2025-26; times still to be announced for 2026-27

Indicative Bibliography Assessment and Contact Hours Schedule

The idea that the British people believe in the NHS and that it has a meaning reaching back to its foundation in 1948 is deeply influential and politically significant. It is often remarked that the NHS is now the closest thing to a national religion in modern Britain. Yet historical examination of this belief, and of whether and how meaning has in fact changed over time, has until recently remained remarkably under-explored. Indeed, there is a striking contrast between the common claims about the centrality of the NHS to British life and identity, and its marginal position in most existing social and cultural histories of post-war Britain. This 30 CATS final-year undergraduate history module provides students with the opportunity to be involved in efforts to develop a cultural history of the NHS. In doing so, you will draw on recent scholarship that is opening up this subject as well as primary source material that will enable you to make your own contribution.