NHS Voices of Covid-19: Public History during a Pandemic

The NHS is part of everyday life in the UK and since 2017 NHS at 70, a national oral history project based at the University of Manchester and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, has been recording the stories of people who have worked for and been treated by the NHS. In March 2020 we recorded over 800 interviews across the four nations of the UK creating an inclusive and diverse archive of voices spanning the 70 plus years of the NHS and before.

In July 2020 we were delighted to be awarded a £1 million grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, as part of the UKRI Covid-19 Urgency call. 'NHS Voices of Covid-19', in partnership with the British Library’s oral history department will create a permanent public resource of the history of the NHS and Covid-19 by recording an additional 900 interviews documenting experiences of Covid-19. This will sit within the British Library’s wider Covid-19 collecting initiative. This success was in part due to the infrastructure, public involvement and support of the project that had developed through the engaged model of research.

This seminar will use testimony from the oral histories and evidence from evaluation and stakeholder engagement to demonstrate the impact of the project in the context of public history and more broadly as we analyse the testimonies to develop resources that will inform public policy and practice in the immediate post-Covid-19 period.  

Please book tickets via Eventbrite: http://bit.ly/PublicHistoryofCOVID.  Joining information will be circulated by 3pm on Thursday 29th October.