NHS 75th Anniversary

5 July 2023 marks 75 years of the National Health Service.

Treating over a million people a day in England, the NHS touches all of our lives. 

When it was founded in 1948, the NHS was the first universal health system to be available to all, free at the point of delivery. 

Today, nine in 10 people agree that healthcare should be free of charge, more than four in five agree that care should be available to everyone, and that the NHS makes them most proud to be British.

From Britain’s first kidney transplant in 1960, to Europe’s first liver transplant in 1968.

From the world’s first CT scan on a patient in 1971, revolutionising the way doctors examine the body, to the world’s first test-tube baby born in 1978.

Large-scale vaccination programmes protected children from whooping cough, measles and tuberculosis, and in 1999 the meningitis C vaccine was offered nationally in a world first.

The NHS has delivered huge medical advances, including the world’s first liver, heart and lung transplant in 1987, pioneering new treatments, such as bionic eyes and, in more recent times, the world’s first rapid whole genome sequencing service for seriously ill babies and children.

For more information visit https://www.england.nhs.uk/nhsbirthday/about-the-nhs-birthday