Border Crossings: Charity, the State, and Health Care Since 1948

Date
Oct 24 – Oct 25, 2024 

Orga­nized in asso­ci­a­tion with a Well­come Trust Col­lab­o­ra­tive Award, Cen­tral London

Con­fer­ence Bor­der Cross­ings: Char­i­ty, the State, and Health Care Since 1948
24th–25th Octo­ber 2024
Cen­tral London

We warm­ly wel­come sub­mis­sions to a two-day con­fer­ence in asso­ci­a­tion with a Well­come Trust Col­lab­o­ra­tive Award on char­i­ty and vol­un­tarism in Britain’s mixed econ­o­my of health­care since 1948.

In 1946, the Min­is­ter of Health for Eng­land and Wales, Aneurin Bevan, con­demned the extent to which a sig­nif­i­cant part of the UK’s hos­pi­tal sys­tem was depen­dent on the ‘caprice of pri­vate char­i­ty’. How­ev­er, char­i­ty – and vol­un­tarism more gen­er­al­ly – have con­tin­ued to play a sig­nif­i­cant role in the devel­op­ment of health­care with­in the UK’s Nation­al Health Ser­vice. Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, the remark­able impact of NHS Char­i­ties Together’s Urgent COVID-19 Appeal demon­strat­ed the con­tin­u­ing rel­e­vance of char­i­ta­ble mon­ey in the NHS today. 

We invite abstract sub­mis­sions for papers from aca­d­e­m­ic researchers, pol­i­cy-mak­ers and prac­ti­tion­ers which active­ly engage with ques­tions about the role of char­i­ty in health­care sys­tems. Although our own project has focused on devel­op­ments with­in the UK, we also wel­come papers which address these issues from a more inter­na­tion­al per­spec­tive. Papers might address ques­tions includ­ing (but not lim­it­ed to): 

– What eth­i­cal issues are gen­er­at­ed by char­i­ta­ble finance in health-care, and how might organ­i­sa­tions respond to the dilem­mas these pose? 
– Who defines the aspects of health­care pro­vi­sion that are ‘essen­tial’, or are ‘nice-to-have’? 
– To what extent has char­i­ty played a par­tic­u­lar role either in pio­neer­ing the devel­op­ment of new ser­vices or direct­ing atten­tion to the needs of so-called ‘Cin­derel­la’ services? 
– How have atti­tudes to fundrais­ing, and fundrais­ing prac­tices in health­care, changed over the years? 
– What role has char­i­ty played in ‘embed­ding’ hos­pi­tals and oth­er health­care facil­i­ties with­in their com­mu­ni­ties, and what role does it con­tin­ue to play? 
– What roles have busi­ness­es and cor­po­ra­tions played in rela­tion to char­i­ta­ble income in the NHS?
– What impact has char­i­ta­ble fund­ing had with­in broad­er pat­terns of health­care expenditure? 
– What can debates about the role of char­i­ty with­in health­care reveal about the atti­tudes of dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal par­ties towards the role of vol­un­tarism more broadly?

More details and full call for papers avail­able on our project web­site.