'The National Health' is a bleak and blackly comic glimpse into the everyday life of the NHS and its patients. The nurses and doctors on the ward struggle against long hours, low funding and overwork. Intercut with the darkly comic scenes are scenes from a histrionic hospital soap opera, the reality behind them giving the lie to whitewashed scenes of medical glamour. The first production of 'The National Health' was given in 1969 at the National Theatre, London.