Migrant architects of the NHS

South Asian doctors and the reinvention of British general practice (1940s-1980s)

Julian M. Simpson, Julian Simpson

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781526145017
  9781784991302
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526115799
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Social History

Migrant Architects draws on 45 oral history interviews and extensive archival research to offer a radical reappraisal of how the National Health Service was made.

It tells the story of migrant South Asian doctors who became general practitioners in the NHS. Imperial legacies, professional discrimination and an exodus of UK-trained doctors combined to direct these doctors towards work as GPs in some of the most deprived parts of the UK. In some areas, they made up over half of the general practitioner workforce. The NHS was structurally dependent on them and they shaped British society and medicine through their agency.

This book is aimed at students and academics with interests in the history of immigration, immigration studies, the history of medicine, South Asian studies and oral history. It will also be of interest to anyone who wants to know more about how Empire and migration have contributed to making Britain what it is today.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of tables and figures
• Preface and acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: writing the history of the ‘International’ Health Service
• Part I Healthcare and migration in Britain during the post-war period
• Part II The colonial legacy, racism and the staffing of surgeries
• Part III Shaping British medicine and British society
• Bibliography
• Index