Channel 4 was barely a year old when G F Newman's searing drama about the NHS debuted. A commission from Euston Films, produced by the legendary Verity Lambert, The Nation's Health cemented the channel's reputation for hard hitting drama, particularly at a time when Thatcher's government was sharpening its knives ready to butcher the welfare state amidst her own drive to reverse what she saw as a national decline. There is no doubt she inherited a UK dubbed 'the sick man of Europe', crippled by high inflation, high unemployment and stagnant growth. The NHS was caught up in her desire to deregulate the finance sectors and labour markets and flog state owned assets and companies.