Health before the NHS 1 The Road to Recovery

Timeshift: Robert Winston narrates the shocking story of health in Britain before the National Health Service. In the early 20th century, getting treated if you were ill was a rudimentary, risky and costly business - a luxury few could afford. Using rare archive footage and personal testimony, the programme tells how ordinary people, GPs, midwives and local councils coped with a chaotic and ramshackle system as they struggled to deal with sickness and disease in the homes and communities of pre-World War Two Britain.