- Published: 16 December 2023
- ISBN: 9780241991862
- Imprint: Penguin General UK
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 384
- RRP: $24.99
Fighting for Life
The Twelve Battles that Made Our NHS, and the Struggle for Its Future
- Published: 16 December 2023
- ISBN: 9780241991862
- Imprint: Penguin General UK
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 384
- RRP: $24.99
This remarkable and immensely readable book looks back at the highs and lows of the NHS's first 75 years, and asks critical questions about its future. Thought-provoking, despairing, eye-opening, and inspiring in equal measure
Sir David Haslam
Passionate, deeply researched and page-turningly full of good stories, this is so good one is tempted to say it is the book the NHS has always deserved
Andrew Marr
A superb, rollercoaster account of the NHS . . . This completely riveting and scrupulously researched book shows how, just like its patients, the NHS sways precariously between money, morality and mortality, and trust, trauma and triumph
Juliet Nicolson
A compelling thriller . . . Fighting for Life provides vivid and urgently needed context to the familiar daily news stories about the crises in the NHS
Steve Richards
A must-read for anyone interested in how the NHS started and why we have ended up where we are. A thoroughly fascinating, comprehensive and critical analysis
Dr Ranj Singh
A fascinating, insightful and forensic history of the NHS by a journalist who understands the politics as well as the policy of the health service. Essential reading
Rachel Sylvester
This is a sensational and much-needed book: funny, intelligent and so beautifully written that it doesn't read like normal non-fiction . . . thorough, scholarly and above all readable
Chris van Tulleken
Brilliant
Adam Kay, author of This is Going to Hurt and Undoctored
A compelling, deftly constructed and powerfully told narrative . . . Hardman is a meticulous journalist with a gift for storytelling. Necessary reading
Rafael Behr, Guardian
Terrific . . . Every aspect of this history is informed and beautifully written
Alan Johnson, Observer, Book of the Week
It has by far the best analysis of where the health service came from, and where it's going . . . full of excellent stories
Karol Sikora, The Telegraph
A kaleidoscopic history of the NHS
Henry Marsh, New Statesman
Hardman's writing is breezily accessible, and her deeply researched book is full of colourful vignettes and an enjoyable spice of gossip . . . she is particularly good at locating the NHS within the wider social movements that have changed British life over the 75 years of its existence
Sarah Neville, Financial Times
Vivid and fascinating, this is a beautifully cogent, balanced and human biography of a health service haunted by its own mythology . . . Hardman is impressively even-handed and unsentimental
Melanie Reid, The Times, Book of the Week
Hardman provides an admirable account of the struggles of the [health service] . . . She is lucid, fair and unpolemical
Andrew Gimson, Conservative Home
A brilliantly written and engrossing biography of the NHS . . . compelling and even-handed
Kate Womersley, The Spectator