Jeremy Hunt claims a Tory was the true founder of the NHS – that’s rubbish | Letter

Henry Willink did produce a white paper on a national health service in 1944, says Labour peer Tom Pendry, but then joined Churchill and other Tory notables in voting against Nye Bevan’s bill

At the recent Conservative party conference the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, claimed that it was Henry Willink, the Tory minister for health in the wartime coalition, who introduced a white paper on a national health service in 1944, making Willink the founder of the NHS and not Nye Bevan.

My research, thanks to the House of Lords library, tells me that this is complete nonsense and that Mr Hunt is way off the mark. Mr Willink’s proposed bill was by his own admission no more than a consultative document and did not see the light of day.

Continue reading... November 02, 2017 at 12:58AM