01/08/2026
August Object of the Month is Issue No. 4 of Concord the group news sheet from Christmas 1972 produced by North Lancashire and South Westmorland Hospital Management Committee.
First issued in March 1972, it was an exercise in internal communications to allay mounting anxieties about the future of the National Health Service (NHS) on the cusp of its first major reorganisation since its creation in 1948.
Anxieties were many. 1972 saw the publication of the Briggs Report into nursing. This reshaped its professional identity away from nursing as a vocation towards research, education and training. Briggs arrived at the same time as a progress report on the 1966 Salmon Report which had standardised nursing pay, hierarchy and graded responsibilities.
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