Published
Jul 5, 2023Page count
170 pagesISBN
978-1447368878Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy PressPublished
Jul 5, 2023Page count
170 pagesISBN
978-1447368892Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy Press
How Britain Loves the NHS
In the media:
How much does Britain still ‘love’ the NHS? for The Spectator
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
What does it mean to love a healthcare system?
It is often claimed that the UK population is unusually attached to its National Health Service, and the last decade has seen increasingly visible displays of gratitude and love. While social surveys of public attitudes measure how much Britain loves the NHS, this book mobilises new empirical research to ask how Britain loves its NHS.
The answer delves into a series of public practices – such as campaigning, donating and volunteering within NHS organisations – and investigates how attitudes to the NHS shape patient experience of healthcare. Stewart argues that these should be understood as practices of care for, and contestation about the future of, the healthcare system.
This book offers a timely critique of both the potential, and the dysfunctions, of Britain’s complex love affair with the NHS.
“Stewart is optimistic that affection tempered with realism could be a force for change.” The Spectator
“If there is one aspect of the NHS that puzzles non-UK audiences, it is the ‘love’ that this cash-strapped and sometimes creaking public service evokes among British people. In this book, Ellen Stewart brilliantly uses the extraordinary COVID moment as a lens to explore the extent, the depth, and the meanings of that love, demonstrated through individual and collective actions rather than words alone.” Roberta Bivins, University of Warwick
“In the NHS's 75th anniversary year, Ellen Stewart skilfully weaves together a wide range of concepts and empirical data to address the neglected question of why Britain loves the NHS.” Martin Powell, University of Birmingham
“This brilliant and beautiful book examines the conditions and consequences of our collective attachment to the NHS and explores how these complicated desires might form a basis for its renewal. I have really enjoyed reading it - it's the best thing I have ever read about the NHS, and the only one I have ever read that does justice to its political-cultural significance (and contradictions).” John Clarke, The Open University
“This is a wonderful book. Popular love for the NHS might be, as Stewart writes, often seen just as the background to the ‘real’ politics social scientists study, but as this work shows it is a foundational fact about the NHS systems and how they work. Moreover, it sheds light on fundamental aspects of politics and culture in the UK, showing how the population, in ways large and small, anchor its universal health care in shared and often misunderstood values.” Scott L. Greer, University of Michigan
Ellen A. Stewart is Senior Lecturer and Chancellor’s Fellow in the Centre for Health Policy at the University of Strathclyde.
1. On loving the NHS
2. Public opinion and the NHS
3. Fundraising for the NHS
4. Volunteering in the NHS
5. Campaigning for the NHS
6. Using and loving the NHS
7. What we can do with love: the future of the NHS in public
