Hospitals and Healthcare

As it turns 75, the N.H.S., a proud symbol of Britain’s welfare state, is in the deepest crisis of its history.

But it’s not too late to save it.

Most winters, headlines warn that Britain's National Health Service (NHS) is at "breaking point." The alarms sound over and over and over again. But the current crisis has set warning bells ringing louder than before.

A new book brings together over 100 photos from the early decades of Britain’s publicly funded National Health Service, a national institution that turns 75 this week.

Life expectancy in Britain, as in almost all other rich countries, had been rising for nearly two centuries. But something went wrong in the early 2010s.

British doctors are risking their jobs to speak out against what they say is an unfolding catastrophe in the national health system, with patients left lying on hospital floors and in corridors while they wait for help.