‘Health policy’ is a slippery concept. In Britain, since the establishment of the National Health Service, it has often come to be associated only with the NHS, but it has a longer running and wider history. Health policy both predates the NHS and goes beyond it. This report provides an analytical overview of the history of British health policy since 1848.

The political dimension to health policy-making in Britain over the last two centuries is just one of the many constants pointed to in the chapters in this report. Collectively, these deal not only with the history of health policy but also offer a set of powerful insights into the processes, problems, and practices of health policy. Drawing ‘lessons’ from such a history is always something of a movable feast. Nonetheless, these chapters offer a set of powerful insights into health policy in the past, that may speak to the present. Difficulties with implementation, variability, lack of clarity over who was in control, poor coordination of services, lack of resources, a proliferation of policy actors, and tensions between them, are not just historical problems, but contemporary ones too. This report may not provide many solutions, but by exposing the roots of ongoing issues, better policies may yet come to fruit.