Socialized Medicine in England and Wales; The National Health Service 1948–1961: Almont Lindsey. University of North Carolina Press. 42s. 561 pp.
During the bitter winter, casualty officers were introduced to a new medical problem of the Welfare State; lonely people, especially old men and women were brought to hospital suffering from accidental hypothermia (chilling to death). Such ‘interesting cases’ might elude diagnosis as standard thermometers do not measure below 95°F; their temperatures could be 15° lower. These cases manifested a torpor and apathy as acute as that of the society which let them run down in neglect.
People like this do not exist in Dr. Lindsey’s study of the NHS. In this sense it is another contribution to the mythology of the Welfare State. As an American of liberal opinions he has been anxious to erase the stigma attached to the idea of ‘socialized medicine’, a term which the notorious American Medical Association has turned into a term of abuse. By the standard of American private medical enterprise the achievements of the NHS are necessarily impressive; it is, however, because Dr. Lindsey’s standards are conditioned by such a medical environment that he has not asked some fundamental questions which might reveal the faults of the Service. In many ways this book is analogous to a business efficiency expert’s survey of the Health Service. This is valuable, not only because the range of reading upon which this book is based is wide and thorough, but also because the efficiency of the relatively humane system we have today cannot be over-emphasised as against the inhumanity of the anarchy which existed before.