The National Health Service Sixty Years On

About the Book

This book is both historical and topical. Historical, because it attempts to paint a picture of the performance and progress of one of the largest organisations in operation today, the National Health Service, which this year will celebrate 60 years of service to the community, by providing treatment and care to the nation. It has reached a point of consolidation and a time to take stock. This book seeks to do precisely that, by examining, "Where Have we Been" and "Where are we Now".

It is topical, because it seeks to establish the position to date, and what the future may have in store for the Service and all those involved in its progress. The Author has been firm but fair in his comments and at the same time has not pronounced criticism or highlighted the failures without offering advice or the alternative. After all is said and done, the NHS is an organisation we all have a share in and collectively own, and it is for that reason that we should all be interested in its progress and performance and the quality of service it delivers.

The book looks to the future, with all the added and anticipated problems, with the intention that those in a position to make good will do so and not, as seems to have been the case in the past, take no notice.

About the Author

John Thompson did not attend a university but came up the hard way in the 1930's by way of the Evening Institutes and the Correspondence College. He qualified in 1938 as an accountant and was employed in the insurance industry. At the outbreak of the Second World War he enlisted in the RAF and served six years and three months returning home from overseas in December 1945. He joined the Hospital Service in Oxford, just prior to the "Appointed Day" in July 1948, which saw the birth of the NHS. He was appointed in charge of the Accounts Department at the Churchill Hospital where his hospital experiences and this book begins. The Churchill Hospital, part of the United Oxford Hospitals Group, was where he worked for almost 10 years.

In 1958, he left the NHS and joined the Wholesale Distribution Division of W H Smith & Son. He spent 25 years in senior management positions and managed a number of distribution warehouses in various parts of the country, finishing in 1979, at the company's head office in London. He is a Member of the British Institute of Management.

He retired in 1982 and was invited to take up a three year appointment as Financial and Management Consultant with Express and Star Newspaper Group, the second largest evening paper in terms of circulation in the country.

In 1966, the author became Secretary of the News Industry's Benevolent Institution. He was awarded The Good Samaritan Badge Award for his services to charity.

Recently, he has served on the P.P.I. Forum and is a serving Governor Member with South Staffordshire and Shropshire NHS Foundation Trust which, he is very proud to say, has just been awarded the accolade of "Foundation Trust of the Year" 2007.