Well yes, the NHS was an idea proposed by William Beverdige in the Beveridge report of 1942, which was the result of the work of a committee set up during the war to suggest ways in which Britain could be improved after the war. Clement Attlee was the Prime Minister in the UK after the war, but it was Aneurin Bevan, the minister for health, who was responsible for the National Health Service Act of 1946. The new scheme came into being on 5th July 1948 and everyone received free medical, dental, hospital and eye treatment and there was no charge for spectacles, false teeth and medicines. Aneurin Bevan set it up because he truly believed the people of Britain, many of whom lived below the poverty line as a result of the war and the previous depression, had the right to entirely free health care at the point of use. In fact, he believed so strongly in this concept that he resigned in 1951 when the government decided to offset some of the cost of running the scheme by making patients pay towards the cost of dental treatment, prescriptions and specs.
