Contagious Communities: Medicine, Migration, and the NHS in Post War Britain

It was only a coincidence that the NHS and the Empire Windrush (a ship carrying 492 migrants from Britains West Indian colonies) arrived together. On 22 June 1948, as the ships passengers disembarked, frantic preparations were already underway for 5 July, the Appointed Day when the nations new National Health Service would first open its doors. The relationship between immigration and the NHS rapidly attained - and has enduringly retained - notable political andcultural significance.Both the Appointed Day and the post-war arrival of colonial and Commonwealth immigrants heralded transformative change. Together, they reshaped daily life in Britain and notions of Britishness alike. Yet the reciprocal impacts of post-war immigration and medicine in post-war Britain have yet to be explored. Contagious Communities casts new light on a period which is beginning to attract significant historical interest. Roberta Bivins draws attention to the importance - but also thelimitations - of medical knowledge, approaches, and professionals in mediating post-war British responses to race, ethnicity, and the emergence of new and distinctive ethnic communities. By presenting a wealth of newly available or previously ignored archival evidence, she interrogates and re-balances thepolitical history of Britains response to New Commonwealth immigration. Contagious Communities uses a set of linked case-studies to map the persistence of race in British culture and medicine alike, the limits of belonging in a multi-ethnic welfare state, and the emergence of new and resolutely unimagined communities of patients, researchers, clinicians, policy-makers, and citizens within the medical state and its global contact zones.