ABSTRACT
Although the National Health Insurance Scheme of 1911 was a major step in the development of the health care of modern Britain, it has received little attention by historians in comparison with a growing literature on the National Health Service (NHS) reform of 1946/48. This chapter aims to help redress this situation by looking at connections between the economic and medical results of the 1911 scheme. There are some difficulties in attempting to analyse the quantitative significance of the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme, because the Act did not come into effect until 1913 and was swiftly overtaken by the major upheaval of the First World War, thus making continuous statistical series a matter of good fortune rather than expectation. However, good qualitative evidence helps compensate for this.
