BEN CHACKO reports on fears at TUC Congress that the provisions in the legislation are liable to be watered down even further

NYE BEVAN was ultimately responsible for the establishing the NHS in 1948. But the Tredegar politician and MP for Ebbw Vale, who became minister for health and housing in 1945, had an ideal model on which to base his new health service, which has been described as “the most far-reaching piece of social legislation in British history.”
That model was the local community self-help scheme run by the Tredegar Workmen’s Medical Aid Society on which Bevan had served as a committee member in the 1920s.
When he created the NHS, Bevan said, “All I am doing is extending to the entire population of Britain the benefits we had in Tredegar for a generation or more. We are going to ‘Tredegar-ise’ you.”

MARK TURNER holds on tight for a mesmerising display of Neath-born ragtime virtuosity

MARK TURNER wallows in the virtuosity of Swansea Jazz Festival openers, Simon Spillett and Pete Long

MARK TURNER welcomes the rebirth of a once great Welsh jazz festival
