Before joining UCL in October 2023, Andrew was the Plumer Junior Research Fellow in History at St Anne's College, University of Oxford. He trained in both the UK and the USA, gaining a doctorate in History from New York University (NYU) in 2021.

Environmental History and New Directions in Modern British Historiography', Twentieth Century British History 30, no. 3 (2019): 447-456. In its 75 th year, the National Health Service is arguably facing its most challenging battles yet. Hardman describes how the problems inflicted on the health service by the pandemic – trauma for staff equivalent to wartime; colossal expense; disruption of systems and cancellation of routine procedures – are unrelenting and existential. “The NHS continues to operate at a pace and level of stress that it simply has not seen in its entire history,” she writes. The resultant danger is that “patients are starting to lose faith with it in an unprecedented way, too”. Association of Scottish Antimicrobial Pharmacists: Kirsteen Hill, Antimicrobial/HIV Pharmacist, NHS Tayside and Fiona McDonald, Specialist Pharmacist - Antibiotics, NHS GrampianOur programme of work is headed up by our Chair Dr Andrew Seaton and Project Lead Frances Kerr. We work closely with colleagues in National Services Scotland (NSS) and NHS Education for Scotland (NES). Currently, I am a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at University College London (UCL). Previously, I was the Plumer Junior Research Fellow in History at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford. This shift marked the growth of what I describe in my book as ‘welfare nationalism’, meaning a belief in welfare services as reflective of values essential to the nation. In addition, the NHS began to stand apart from the wider welfare state in terms of its prominence from this point.

Hardman’s book, in fact, is full of excellent stories about politicians, including Barbara Castle and the strike – purely on political principle, and not for more money – in the private wing at Charing Cross Hospital in 1974. Labour was clearly at loggerheads with the National Union of Public Employees, who called it the Fulham Hilton, in trying to resolve the issue amicably. (I was a junior doctor around the corner at Hammersmith Hospital, and knew nothing about it all.) It is a ritual dance displaying a peculiarity of British politics. The country that led global trends in privatisation of state assets and whose most electorally successful party makes a fetish of free-market enterprise finds itself also home to one of the world’s most popular and durable socialist institutions. Florence dedicated her life to helping those in need. She was a trailblazer who led a group of nurses to care for wounded soldiers during the Crimean War and developed revolutionary views about hygiene and sanitation. Hailed as a heroine by Queen Victoria and the British people upon her return from the front, Florence Nightingale went on to establish the Nightingale Training School for Nurses and despite chronic illness, continued in her efforts to reform healthcare at home and abroad from her London salon. On 5 July, the NHS will celebrate its 75th anniversary. To coincide, a special series of programming across the BBC spanning BBC Radio 4, BBC News and Radio 5 Live will take the temperature of the national health service to consider what the future might look like for the NHS’s huge workforce and the patients who rely on it. It includes personal recollections from healthcare professionals on the frontline and from the patients themselves, in their care. The NHS at 70: A Living History (Ellen Welch)Our NHSwas published in the summer of 2023, during a period of serious concern for the health service. The waiting list figures for treatment stood at their worst levels on record, strikes among health professionals unfolded across the service, and unknown numbers of NHS staff seemed to be emigrating for better conditions and pay overseas. Nonetheless, the NHS also received an enormous amount of celebration – including, a service in Westminster Abbey, an NHS ‘Big Tea’ occurring in different parts of the U.K., and a new commemorative fifty pence piece from the Royal Mint. Though I learned first-hand about the serious challenges facing the service from doctors and patients in my audiences as I spoke about the book after its publication, I also encountered public attachment to the NHS that reminded me why it had lasted through other periods of crisis. I hope that my small contribution to telling the service’s history might provide us with another perspective when we think about its future.