From conception to birth – a policy analysis of the NHS University

The idea of creating a new kind of higher education institution, a corporate university for the NHS, is closely bound up with the Labour Government's modernisation project. This paper explores the provenance of the NHS University (NHSU).

In this Nuffield Trust Report, Professor Celia Davies charts the provenance of the corporate NHS University and predicts possible futures. She examines in particular the maelstrom of political influences at play and highlights nursing education as a particular battleground of public policy. The report is set in the wider context of the development of higher education covering the spectrum from the traditional universities through to the new corporate universities.