LONDON, June 5 (Xinhua) -- A small Welsh coal mining and steelmaking town that became the birthplace of Britain's famous National Health Service (NHS) was celebrated Tuesday.
A little-known medical aid society in South Wales inspired national politician Aneurin Bevan to create the NHS, according to a unique audio archive launched on Tuesday, one month before the NHS marks its 70th anniversary.
University of Manchester historians have for the first time documented the experiences of NHS patients and staff over its history with recordings, photos and other memorabilia.
NHS at 70, led by Dr Stephanie Snow from university's Center for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, contains audio of a patient who was helped by the Tredegar Workmen's Medical Aid Society in South Wales.
NHS at 70 team member James McSharry recorded an interview with 79-year-old Philip Prosser from Tredegar, home town of 1940s Labour Minister Bevan who masterminded the creation of the NHS to provide free health care across Britain.
Prosser was born with "club foot", a condition where one or both feet point down and inwards. In the interview he describes how his father paid a small weekly subscription to a society formed by miners and steelworkers, which entitled him to surgery on his feet at around 1939.
By the time of the Second World War, around 95 percent of people in Tredegar were covered by the service.
Prosser said: "At the time my father was paying in to the Medical Aid Society so I was taken to one of the top orthopaedic doctors in Wales and that was the start of my treatment for quite a few years. When the NHS came in in 1948, I was transferred over. It was exactly the same as the NHS in 1948. We already had it in Tredegar before that."
Snow said the interview with Prosser showed that the principles underpinning the NHS - a health service available to all, free at the point of use and financed from subscriptions according to peoples' means - were around before its creation in 1948.
Other people interviewed also recalled health treatment in Britain before the creation of the NHS in 1948.
Snow added: "It also shows how Bevan's home town helped formed his ideas which would shape healthcare in the whole of Britain. Bevan saw it worked in Tredegar and felt it would work across the UK- and 70 years later, people's commitment to the idea of an NHS remains steadfast."
Professor Jane Cummings, Chief Nursing Officer for England, said: "The NHS's 70th birthday is an ideal opportunity to share the stories and memories of the NHS, and the NHS at 70 archive will mean generations of patients and staff can continue to look back on decades of progress as we all look forward to the future of our health service."
