MoH - Ministry of Health, 1919-1968

The recruitment of men to fight in WW1 highlighted the poor health of many of those who enlisted. By the 1910s, public health services were provided through a system of charitable voluntary hospitals and workhouses. Some were administered under the Poor Law through the Local Government Board. In April 1917 Lord Rhondda, President of the Local Government Board, proposed to Lloyd George's Cabinet that a Ministry of Health should take over the functions of the Board and Poor Law administration. The Government's Reconstruction Committee, set up to oversee the rebuilding of the nation after the war, approved of this proposal. Later in the same year in a lecture given at the Royal Institute of Public Health, Major Waldorf Astor MP confirmed the need for one central health department. In 1919 the Government passed an Act which established a Ministry of Health to exercise powers with respect to public health in England and Wales and to promote the health of the people.

The first body which could be called a department of government was the Ministry of Health, created through the Ministry of Health Act 1919, consolidating under a single authority the medical and public health functions of central government. This Act of Parliament established for the first time in the United Kingdom a Minister of Health. It also established the Consultative Council on National Health Insurance, the Consultative Council on Medical and Allied Services, the Consultative Council on Local Health Administration and the Consultative Council on General Health Questions. Separate provision was made for consultative arrangements in Wales and ireland. Christopher Addison was the first minister appointed.

The Ministry of Health, following its creation in 1919, took on the powers and duties of the health functions of the government, which were previously fragmented across departments, most notably from the following:

• Local Government Board .
• The National Health Insurance Commissions of England and Wales .
• Privy Council .
• The Home Office .
• The Board of Education .

The principal purpose of the new ministry was to consolidate under a single authority the medical and public health functions of the central government and the co-ordination and supervision of local health services in England and Wales. Revisions to the administration came throughout the 20th century; notably, the co-ordination of local medical services was greatly extended in connection with emergency and wartime services from 1938 to 1945, and these developments culminated in the establishment of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948. 

In 1968, the Ministry of Health was dissolved and its functions transferred (along with those of the similarly dissolved Ministry of Social Security) to the newly created Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS). In 1988, these functions were split back into two government departments, forming the Department of Social Security (DSS) and the Department of Health.

After the 2018 British cabinet reshuffle, the department was renamed the Department of Health and Social Care.

Until 2017, the department was located in Richmond House, Whitehall. 

In November 2017, the department's headquarters and ministerial offices were moved to 39 Victoria Street, London. Its other principal offices are Skipton House (Elephant and Castle), Wellington House near Waterloo station and Quarry House in Leeds. Wellington House is now mainly occupied by staff from the department's arms-length bodies. New King's Beam House near Blackfriars Bridge was formerly a Department of Health office prior to the expiry of its lease in October 2011. Alexander Fleming House and Hannibal House were previously used by the department. The archives are at Nelson, Lancashire.

https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/coll-9-health1/health-09/ .

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/twentieth-century-public-health-social-policy/ .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Health_and_Social_Care .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_National_Health_Service .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Health_Act_1919 .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:United_Kingdom_Acts_of_Parliament_1919 .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:United_Kingdom_Acts_of_Parliament_by_year .

2021:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-health-and-social-care .

https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/minister-of-state--59 .