ABSTRACT
Despite the fact that, in real terms, HIV and Aids have directly affected only a relatively small proportion of the British population,1 the epidemic has had a significant impact on the development of health and social welfare policy for a variety of complex reasons that are still unfolding. From the mid-1980s, the public aspects of this impact were well documented in an expansive specialist literature, but as funding priorities changed in the early 1990s, work slowed considerably. This chapter assesses the role of oral history in documenting the epidemic in the first decade and draws on more recent oral history material to describe subsequent changes that emerged in the 1990s.
