ABSTRACT
The period immediately before the First World War was one of dynamic and extensive social policy reform. Health and the National Health Service is principally associated with the Liberal Governments of 1905-1914 and involved changing policies and provision in areas of child care, special needs education, employment services, income benefits for the sick and unemployed, maternity services, mental handicap, old age pensions and especially health care. The introduction of a school health service was a rather muted affair, where a surprising outcome for a new personal health service given the conflicts surrounding the establishment of public health legislation. The establishment of National Health Insurance (NHI) in the UK can be seen as part of a trend apparent in a number of European countries in which voluntary health insurance, offering extensive but partial provision of community GP-based health care for working-class men, was supplanted by compulsory health insurance in which the services of GPs were extended to most working-class men.
