THE National Health Service will be 50 years old on July 5, 1998. Many individuals and organisations have volunteered to help mark this anniversary both nationally and locally.

I am writing as chairman of the UK group supporting the anniversary, which has a wide membership including the medical and nursing royal colleges, trade unions and community and patient organisations.

We hope to enlist the help of your readers in finding people who have a special place in the history of the NHS.

For example, was one of your readers the first person to be born in a particular town under the NHS or the first to receive a new treatment or diagnostic procedure as services have developed?

Perhaps a reader has a story to tell about the pioneering of a new development.

The NHS has touched the lives of everyone in the country. If you can help us tell its story, please write to me.

PROFESSOR MICHAEL SCHOFIELD, Chairman NHS 50, PO Box 14694, London SE1 6ZE.

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