Patient Voices in Britain, 18401948

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Description

Historians have long engaged with Roy Porters call for histories that incorporate patients voices and experiences. But despite concerted methodological efforts, there has simply not been the degree and breadth of innovation that Porter envisaged. Patients voices still often remain obscured. This has resulted in part from assumptions about the limitations of archives, many of which are formed of institutional records written from the perspective of health professionals. Patient voices in Britain repositions patient experiences at the centre of healthcare history, using new types of sources and reading familiar sources in new ways. Focusing on military medicine, Poor Law medicine, disability, psychiatry and sexual health, this collection encourages historians to tackle the ethical challenges of using archival material and to think more carefully about how their work might speak to persistent health inequalities and challenges in health-service delivery.

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Unlike many edited volumes, the editors and contributors have made a concerted effort here to integrate their contributions speak to each other. Particularly valuable are the efforts that each chapter makes to show how historical research can improve contemporary policy making. The volume convincingly shows that patientsincluding those outside the entitled classeswere far from voiceless; by reading records against the grain or mining extant archival collections with them in mind, these historians have lived up to Roy Porters call to write more patient-centred narratives.
Social History of Medicine

Author Bio

Anne Hanley is a Lecturer in History of Science and Medicine at Birkbeck, University of London

Jessica Meyer is Associate Professor of Modern British History at the University of Leeds