An extract from the film-poem celebrating 70 years of the NHS: To Provide All People

This month marks the 70th anniversary of the National Health Service Act. To honour the occasion Owen Sheers has created a virtuosic ‘film-poem’, To Provide All People,  which Faber published last month and which has subsequently premiered on BBC2.

Depicting 24 hours in the service, with a regional hospital at the centre of the action, the poem charts an emotional and philosophical map of the NHS against the personal experiences that lie at its heart; from patients to surgeons, porters to midwives.

Read the opening prologue from To Provide All People.

Watch a clip from the BBC production which aired on BBC2 on Saturday 30th June and is now available on the BBC iPlayer. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06c424k