"Supervised neglect”? : The organisation and provision of dental services outside hospitals under the “classic” National Health Service (NHS) in North West England, 1948-74

Lambert, Michael (2026) "Supervised neglect”? : The organisation and provision of dental services outside hospitals under the “classic” National Health Service (NHS) in North West England, 1948-74. Dental Historian, 71 (1). pp. 28-49. ISSN 0958-6687

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Abstract

The organisation and provision of dental services outside hospitals during the early decades of the National Health Service (NHS) have been characterised by the Health Select Committee as ‘supervised neglect’. Rooted in local, regional and national archival sources of policymaking, and using North West England as a geographic case study, this paper examines this characterisation during the ‘classic’ period of the NHS from its establishment in 1948 to its first major reorganisation in 1974. Despite evident neglect, a narrative of unspectacular yet cumulative change shaped by national government parsimony, local ambition and practitioner initiative is revealed across primary and community dental care through a careful, contextual reconstruction of archival sources.