Sharing stories on the NHS

12 April 2010

A new study looking at the experiences of ordinary people and their opinions of their care over the first 60 years of the National Health Service has been published.

'Ordinary People Tell the Story' provides colourful accounts of people's encounters with the NHS in 1949, 1997 and 2008. The accounts are taken from the Mass Observation Archive, which specialises in material about everyday life in Britain.

Study authors Linda Lamont, Honorary Fellow in Contemporary History at the University of Sussex, and Fran McCabe have drawn on 60 years of comments by patients and health practitioners to make their own recommendations about the future of the NHS.

McCabe says: "The mass observation material gives us an absorbing and vivid perspective of the NHS going back to its birth. We should not forget that despite its problems, without the NHS many people, especially those without means, would not be alive today.

"People who have contributed to the Mass Observation Archive are reflective and prescient about the strengths and shortcomings of the NHS. They are aware of its complexity and discuss contentious issues around ethics and funding, sometimes suggesting solutions. Even when they have had problems using the NHS, they still hold its values to their hearts."

The study was supported by the Department of Health and a Wellcome Trust History of Medicine grant. It is available online at and the Mass Observation Archive.