Between 1946 and 1948 the UK’s ‘social contract’ was transformed. A programme of legislation ushered in what has come to be known as our Welfare State. The country was emerging from a long, bloody and destructive war. The population was facing daunting psychological, social and economic challenges and was desperate for change. The new laws were a paradigm shift: a radical change in the funding and organisation of health and social care and the support of those in need.

For centuries, poverty and hardship had been dealt with under the Poor Law. These laws dated back to Tudor times, but had been reinvented in 1834, with the setting-up of the dreaded ‘workhouses’. Further reform gathered pace in the early twentieth century, with a range of liberal welfare laws, and the development of friendly societies and trades unions. These reduced the risks of penury, neglect, suffering and death for the poor, disabled, old and sick.