The most characteristic and unusual achievement of the Attlee government was the foundation of the National Health Service, or NHS, a system of universal healthcare, free at the point of treatment. As the government information brochure emphasized: But it is not a "charity". You are all paying for it, mainly as taxpayers.
Whatever government had emerged from the general election of 1945 would have had to embark on schemes of national insurance, education, home building and employment (at the very least, to ease the social pressures of demobilisation). The Christian Democrats who came to power in many parts of Western Europe in the aftermath of the war also did all these things. But a state-owned, centrally-directed system of free universal health care funded through taxation (rather than a government-regulated independent system funded through compulsory mutual health insurance) was socialised medicine at its most socialist. The Minister of Health responsible for bringing the NHS into existence was Aneurin ('Nye') Bevan, a Welsh miner who had got into Labour politics by way of trade union organisation. The NHS proved so popular that, unlike the nationalisation of key industries, it was something no Conservative government would ever dare undo.
In its early days, the NHS provided medical, dental and optical treatment, all free to the patient, and the service would cover whatever a doctor prescribed as necessary to health. The rather naive hope was that as the nation's health improved, the cost of the NHS would fall. Very quickly, as early as 1951, cutbacks had to be made, with charges imposed for some optical and dental treatment. This led to a crisis in the Labour party between the left-wingers and the moderates, with Bevan resigning from the government (followed by Harold Wilson, on whom more at a later date). To try to cover the costs without cutting services or increasing direct taxation, Conservative governments introduced major increases in national insurance contributions in 1952 and again in 1960, and added some charges for prescriptions. Visits to the doctor, hospitalisation, nursing care, necessary specialist treatment, and even transport to hospital for those with mobility problems all remained free.
A celebratory account brought out for the 60th anniversary of the NHS's foundation, in 2008, can be seen on youtube (click through; embedding has been disabled). Below, a short BBC Wales report on the NHS's founder, 'Nye' Bevan (also interesting simply to get a taste of Welsh accents).
