ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Charles Webster’s definitive book on the National Health Service (NHS) that gives a comprehensive overview of the advent of the NHS in terms of national policy formation and implementation, but the variations in experiences of the introduction of the NHS in different localities. The principal aim of the research to examine in detail the changes the NHS brought in the administration of hospitals, general practice, local authority services, and medical education and how the changes were shaped and experienced in a particular location. Scotland is particularly suitable for such a study because there were significant differences between Scotland and England in the implementation of the NHS. The chapter focuses on Glasgow and the surrounding region in the West of Scotland under the control of the Western Regional Hospital Board during the period from 1948 to 1974. The changes in the administrative structure of hospitals were the major administrative innovation of the NHS legislation.
