Doctor shortages in the valley town that inspired the NHS

The birthplace of the NHS is generally acknowledged as Trafford General Hospital, Manchester, officially opened by Aneurin Bevan as Park Hospital on 5 July 1948. But 70 years on, it is still Bevan’s home town of Tredegar, southeast Wales, that can be regarded as where the service was conceived.

Bevan, then health minister, openly boasted that he was basing his ideas for the NHS on the Tredegar Medical Society, which provided free healthcare in the town for iron, coal, and other industry workers, who paid a halfpenny a week into a “sick fund” to run it. “All I am doing is extending to the entire population of Britain the benefits we had in Tredegar for a generation or more. We are going to Tredegar-ise you,” said Bevan, according to a quote etched on a plaque in the town.

That meant providing free services for all at the point of delivery, based on clinical need not ability to pay. But today, Tredegar, like many towns throughout the UK, is struggling to meet those needs and provide those services.