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CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
 

The factors that have caused change and continuity in medicine and health in the last fifty years?
  Throughout this book a number of factors have appeared regularly in the story of medicine. These factors are summarised in the cartoon below. The factors help to explain why changes have taken place. They do not simply describe events, they help to explain why events have taken place. For example some things happen by chance, other things change because of new scientific discoveries.
Telling the story of medicine is based on knowing what happened when but at the same time being able to explain why things happened when they did. You have already discovered that this is difficult. Events and changes do not take place for one reason. There are often many different factors that result in change.
 
 
Activities
Using your knowledge of the NHS and your understanding of the history of medicine:
1. Make a list of all the factors in the cartoon and give two ways that each factor contributed to the improvements in the NHS since 1948.
2. Explain how each factor led to changes or continuity in the NHS.
3. Which factors do you think were most important in making the NHS an effective service?
4. Which factors do you think will force changes on the NHS in the future?