The NHS will be 60 this July. The anniversary will provide an excuse for a bit of nostalgia—those black and white pictures of tidily dressed men, women, and children in orderly queues—but also for much analysis about the role and survival of a comprehensive, universal, centrally funded, free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare system in the 21st century.

Our contribution to that analysis begins this week with the start of Tony Delamothe’s six-part series on the NHS at 60 (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39582.501192.94). In his first article he looks at how “the socialist dream came to be dreamt in the first place.” Although the NHS derived its …