Providing 'special' types of labour and exerting agency: How migrant doctors have shaped the United Kingdom's National Health Service

Since the establishment of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948 as a state-run system providing universal access to health care, nonU.K.-born doctors have constituted a significant proportion of its workforce.1 Yet it is only recently that their contribution, beyond the simple provision of labour, has become the focus of historical enquiry. This chapter builds on an emerging body of research by historians who have explored the roles of migrant doctors. It draws on a broader social science literature that provides evidence of their presence and describes the roles they played. It shows that, to borrow the terminology used by Castles and Miller, as well as being a source of “additional labour,” they have provided “special types of labour”2 throughout the history of the NHS. They have also been able to exert agency on the British health-care system. They therefore played a central role in its development.