- Forerunner of the UK NHS – a state-funded, centrally-controlled, comprehensive health service
- Report setting out a vision for a new Scottish health service with the general practitioner at its heart.
- Best selling novel published by AJ Cronin, followed by a Hollywood film the following year, paints a dire picture of pre-war health provision.
- New hospitals are constructed to deal with expected civilian air raid casualties and threat of invasion. Scotland makes full use of them in the run-up to the NHS.
- Economist William Beveridge sets out his vision of a post-war Welfare State to banish from Britain the evils of the Five Giants –want, ignorance, squalor, idleness and disease.
- July 5 is the official “vesting” day of the National Health Service across the UK. In Scotland the service is set up by a separate act passed in 1947.
- Rising levels of tuberculosis and a chronic shortage of beds and nurses lead to a special scheme for Scottish patients to be treated in Swiss sanatoria.
- Introduced January 1952 – 1 shilling or 5p
- Medical Research Council study by Sir Richard Doll and Sir Austin Bradford Hill of UK doctors shows link between smoking and lung cancer.
- Fundamental scientific discovery of a substance produced by cells to ward off attack by viruses.
- Glasgow produces the first practical ultrasound scanners which in modern forms continue to save countless lives across the world.
- Scotland proves a world leader in nursing education and research.
- Professor (later Sir) Michael Woodruff’s team at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary gives a 49-year-old man a kidney from his twin brother on Oct 30.
- Drug prescribed for morning sickness and a sedative for pregnant women is found to cause terrible side effects –children born with severe limb deformities.
- Established by Edinburgh University with the appointment of Professor Richard Scott.
- Major public health scare for the NHS attracts huge media attention in the new era of television.
- A fundamental discovery in Aberdeen shows how cells are programmed to “commit suicide.”
- First major reorganisation of the NHS in Scotland since 1948 establishes 15 health boards and other bodies for a more efficient and fully integrated service.
- New body created within the Health Department at the Scottish Office to harness and support research to improve the Scottish NHS.
- Formal provision of free contraceptive advice and family planning services to all, irrespective of age or marital status.
- Set of measures now used around the world of a patient’s level of consciousness to chart progress of recovery.
- Fundamental discovery made at Aberdeen University of the morphine-like chemicals produced naturally by the brain.
- Highlights a growing health gap between rich and poor in Britain, despite all the investment in the welfare state and the NHS.
- The world’s first clinical service for MRI is launched by Dr Francis Smith at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
- First case of AIDS identified in Scotland. Infection rates in drug users later found to be among the highest in Europe.
- UK programme introduced following report by Sir Patrick Forrest, professor of surgery at Edinburgh University.
- Black’s two drug discoveries –for heart disease and stomach ulcers –among the most important of the 20th century, saving countless lives around the world.
- The most fundamental change to the National Health Service since its inception brings in the idea of competition and a market for health services.
- First UK use of minimal access surgery to remove a patient’s gall bladder is carried out by Sir Alfred Cuschieri at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee.
- Brings in private firms to build and then maintain non-clinical services in new hospitals.
- Fundamental shift in care with the formal introduction of changes to support people at home rather than institutions.
- Scottish White Paper which sets out the new Government’s stall for phasing out the internal market and with it GP fundholding and contracting for services.
- Scottish Reference Laboratory is set up to help combat the rise of MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus).
- Royal Commission recommends this for older people, and the Scottish Parliament introduces it in 2002.
- First major piece of legislation by the new Scottish Parliament.
- The National Health Service Reform (Scotland) Act, abolishes trusts which are absorbed into health boards.
- Early treatment of patients at the place where they have a heart attack saves lives.
- Report which sets out a blueprint for Scotland’s health services over the next 20 years.
- From March 25 there is no more lighting up of cigarettes in Scotland’s bars, clubs, restaurants and all public enclosed places.
- New Government announces its programme for the future of the NHS based on the principles of mutuality - with patients and the public as partners rather than recipients of care.
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