Editing Aneurin Bevan (section)

===Minister of Health (1945–1951)===
[[File:Anenurin Bevan, Minister of Health, on the first day of the National Health Service, 5 July 1948 at Park Hospital, Davyhulme, near Manchester (14465908720).jpg|thumb|Bevan talking to a patient at [[Trafford General Hospital|Park Hospital]], Manchester, the day the NHS came into being.]]
The free [[National Health Service]] was paid for directly through public money. Bevan had been inspired by the [[Tredegar Medical Aid Society]] in his hometown, where residents would pay a subscription to enable all subscribers and their dependants to have free access to medical services such as nursing or dental care.<ref name=NHS70>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-44658282 |title=NHS 70: Aneurin Bevan Day celebrations in Tredegar |work=BBC News |date=1 July 2018 |access-date=30 July 2019}}</ref> This system proved so popular that 20,000 people supported the organisation during the 1930s. Government income was increased for the welfare state expenditure by a large increase in marginal tax rates for wealthy business owners in particular, as part of what the Labour government largely saw as the redistribution of the wealth created by the working-class from the owners of large-scale industry to the workers.<ref>Bevan argues that the percentage of tax from personal incomes rose from 9% in 1938 to 15% in 1949. But the lowest paid a tax rate of 1%, up from 0.2% in 1938, the middle income brackets paid 14% to 26%, up from 10% to 18% in 1938, the higher earners paid 42%, up from 29%, and the top earners 77%, up from 58% in 1938. ''In Place of Fear'', p. 146. If you earned over £800,000 per annum in 2005 money terms (£10,000 in 1948), you paid 76.7% income tax.</ref> Having been a member of the [[Tredegar General Hospital|Cottage Hospital]] Management Committee around 1928 and serving as chairman in 1929–30, Bevan had received an insight into the management of health services by local authorities, which proved to be a bedrock of his work in founding the National Health Service.<ref name="tsi"/>

{{blockquote|The collective principle asserts that&nbsp;... no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.|Aneurin Bevan|''In Place of Fear'', p. 100}}

On the "appointed day", 5 July 1948, Bevan's [[National Health Service Act 1946]] came into force. On the day, Bevan attended a ceremony at the [[Trafford General Hospital|Park Hospital, Trafford]] (now Trafford General), at which he symbolically received the keys to the hospital.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/articles/2008/07/03/nhs60_trafford_general_hospital_feature.shtml |title=Trafford General: Where It All Began |publisher=BBC |date=3 July 2008 |access-date=24 February 2019 }}</ref> The scheme was achieved having overcome political opposition from both the Conservative Party and from within his own party. Confrontation with the [[British Medical Association]] (BMA) was led by [[Charles Hill, Baron Hill of Luton|Charles Hill]], who published a letter in the [[The BMJ|''British Medical Journal'']] describing Bevan as "a complete and uncontrolled dictator".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Clark |first1=Sir George Norman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wpm8gmGt7Q4C&dq=bevan+%22a+complete+and+uncontrolled+dictator%22&pg=PA1311 |title=A History of the Royal College of Physicians of London |last2=Briggs |first2=Asa |date=1964 |publisher=Clarendon Press for the Royal College of Physicians |isbn=978-0-19-925334-0 |language=en}}</ref> Members of the BMA had dubbed him the "[[Tito]] of Tonypandy".<ref name="tsi"/><ref name="birthnhs">{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/the-birth-of-the-nhs-856091.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220507/https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/the-birth-of-the-nhs-856091.html |archive-date=7 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=The Birth of the NHS |newspaper=The Independent |last=McSmith |first=Andy |date=28 June 2008 |access-date=28 July 2019}}{{cbignore}}</ref> They threatened to derail the National Health Service scheme before it had even begun, as medical practitioners continued to withhold their support just months before the launch of the service. After eighteen months of ongoing dispute between the [[Department of Health (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Health]] and the BMA, Bevan finally managed to win over the support of the vast majority of the medical profession by offering a couple of minor concessions, including allowing consultants to keep their own private practices and continuing to allow doctors to be paid in capitation fees rather than salaries,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thorpe |first=Andrew |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-1-349-25305-0 |title=A History of the British Labour Party |date=1997 |publisher=Macmillan Education UK |isbn=978-0-333-56081-5 |location=London |pages=122–123 |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-1-349-25305-0 |ref=none}}</ref> but without compromising the fundamental principles of his National Health Service proposals. At a dinner in late 1955 or early 1956 to celebrate the publication of the [[Guillebaud Report]] into NHS costs Bevan remarked to [[Julian Tudor Hart]] "ultimately I had to stuff their mouths with gold" about his handling of the consultants. This is often quoted as "I stuffed their mouths with gold".<ref>{{cite book|last=|first=|author-link=|editor-first=Charles|editor-last=Webster|editor-link= Charles Webster (historian of medicine)|title=Aneurin Bevan on the National Health Service|year=1991|publisher=University of Oxford Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine|location=Oxford|isbn=0906844096|pages=219–220|contributor=|chapter=Note on 'Stuffing their Mouth with Gold'}}</ref><ref name="birthnhs"/> Some 2,688 voluntary and municipal hospitals in [[England and Wales]] were nationalised and came under Bevan's supervisory control as Health Minister. Two of the key elements of Bevan's proposals were this nationalisation of the hospital services and the abolition of the sale and purchase of goodwill by general practitioners. The former aimed to provide a uniform standard of consultant led care and expertise throughout the country and to replace the patchwork of voluntary and municipal hospitals which existed at that point. The latter – sale and purchase of goodwill – often placed new entrants to the GP profession under large amounts of debt. Along with this, the Medical Practices Committee was to oversee the distribution of GP practices – a proposal which the previous Coalition Minister had withdrawn after opposition from the British Medical Association.

Bevan said:

{{blockquote|The National Health Service and the Welfare State have come to be used as interchangeable terms, and in the mouths of some people as terms of reproach. Why this is so it is not difficult to understand, if you view everything from the angle of a strictly individualistic competitive society. A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society.<ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.sochealth.co.uk/national-health-service/the-sma-and-the-foundation-of-the-national-health-service-dr-leslie-hilliard-1980/aneurin-bevan-and-the-foundation-of-the-nhs/in-place-of-fear-a-free-health-service-1952/ |title=In Place of Fear |page=81 |last=Bevan |first=Aneurin |date=13 March 1952 |access-date=27 October 2019}}</ref>|Aneurin Bevan|''In Place of Fear'', p. 81}}

Conservative opposition of the National Health Service scheme feared that the sudden access to [[free health care]] would be overrun. In its early stages this proved true, as the service went vastly over budget in its inaugural year, and Attlee was forced to make a radio address to the nation in an attempt to limit the strain on the system. Bevan countered that the initial overspending was down to years of underinvestment in the [[Healthcare in the United Kingdom|British medical system]] prior to the Second World War: by the start of the 1950s, the early overspending had come to an end.<ref name="birthnhs"/>