This book provides new analysis of Britain’s National Health Service as a cultural, not only a political, phenomenon. The National Health Service has provided Britain’s healthcare since 1948. This institution has been the subject of terse political debate since its inception and has had a number of complex reforms and restructures. Yet, the meanings of the NHS are not only — or even primarily – lived out in politics. Nearly every Briton comes into contact with the NHS – from cradle to grave – and this system of healthcare shapes society, culture and everyday life. This book charts these multiple meanings, looking at the NHS as a site of work, activism and consumerism, as a space and in cultural representations. Looking in these ways, the book shows how and why the NHS has become a symbol of Britishness and object of fierce protectiveness, even love, today.
