This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This book is available as an open access ebook under a CC-BY-NC-ND licence. At a time when payment is claiming a greater place than ever before within the NHS, this book provides the first in-depth investigation of the workings, scale and meaning of payment in British hospitals before the NHS. There were only three decades in British history when it was the norm for patients to pay the hospital; those between the end of the First World War and the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. Payment played an important part in redefining rather than abandoning medical philanthropy, based on class divisions and the notion of financial contribution as a civic duty. With new insights on the scope of private medicine and the workings of the means test in the hospital, as well as the civic, consumer and charitable meanings associated with paying the hospital, Gosling offers a fresh perspective on healthcare before the NHS and welfare before the welfare state.

Law and Society in England 1750–1950 is an indispensable text for those wishing to study English legal history and to understand the foundations of the modern British state. In this new updated edition the authors explore the complex relationship between legal and social change. They consider the ways in which those in power themselves imagined and initiated reform and the ways in which they were obliged to respond to demands for change from outside the legal and political classes. What emerges is a lively and critical account of the evolution of modern rights and expectations, and an engaging study of the formation of contemporary social, administrative and legal institutions and ideas, and the road that was travelled to create them. The book is divided into eight chapters: Institutions and Ideas; Land; Commerce and Industry; Labour Relations; The Family; Poverty and Education; Accidents; and Crime. This extensively referenced analysis of modern social and legal history will be invaluable to students and teachers of English law, political science, and social history.

Philanthropy, a 'love of humankind', is now thought of as the rich giving to good causes. The Reputation of Philanthropy explores how this came about and asks why praise for philanthropists has always been matched by criticism. Original and accessible, the book will inform thinking about the proper role for philanthropy today.

Whether in the Swiss countryside or in a doctor's office in Boston, in German, English or French hospitals or within multinational organizations, with early vaccinations or with new pharmaceuticals from Big Pharma today, or in early modern Saxon mining towns or in Prussian military healthcare – for at least 500 years, accounting has been an essential part of medical practice with significant moral, social and epistemological implications. Covering the period between 1500–2000, the book examines in short case studies the importance of calculative practices for medicine in very different contexts. Thus, Accounting for Health offers a synopsis of the extent to which accounting not only influenced medical practices over centuries, but shaped modern medicine as a whole.

An engaging, inclusive history of the NHS, exploring its surprising survival--and the people who have kept it running In recent decades, a wave of appreciation for the NHS has swept across the UK. Britons have clapped for frontline workers and championed the service as a distinctive national achievement. All this has happened in the face of ideological opposition, marketization, and workforce crises. But how did the NHS become what it is today? In this wide-ranging history, Andrew Seaton examines the full story of the NHS. He traces how the service has changed and adapted, bringing together the experiences of patients, staff from Britain and abroad, and the service's wider supporters and opponents. He explains not only why it survived the neoliberalism of the late twentieth century but also how it became a key marker of national identity. Seaton emphasizes the resilience of the NHS--perpetually "in crisis" and yet perennially enduring--as well as the political values it embodies and the work of those who have tirelessly kept it afloat.

How has the UK evolved into the country it is today? This clear, comprehensive survey of its history since 1900 explores the political, economic, social and cultural changes which have divided the nation and held it together, and how these changes were experienced by individuals and communities. Pat Thane challenges conventional interpretations of Britain's past based on stark contrasts, like the dull, conservative 1950s versus the liberated 'swinging sixties', and explores the key themes of nationalisms, the rise and fall of the welfare state, economic success and failure, imperial decline, and the UK's relationship with Europe. Highlighting changing living standards and expectations and inequalities of class, income, wealth, race, gender, sexuality, religion and place, she reveals what has (and has not) changed in the UK since 1900, why, and how, helping the reader to understand how our contemporary society, including its divisions and inequalities, was formed.