Care of military casualties was integrated into the British National Health Service.

NPR: British Treatment of Injured Soldiers Questioned

In one of the most memorable scenes from the former, 600 staff members of the National Health Service participated in a number that celebrated the British health-care system.

WSJ: Culture City: No Medals, but Olympic Winners All the Same

In 1990 American diabetics were twice as likely to go blind or need their limbs amputated as their British fellow-sufferers, because Britain's National Health Service, which has a limited budget to cover the entire population, worked harder to make sure that they took their insulin injections and turned up regularly for eye tests.

ECONOMIST: Your money or your life

This was the most significant reforming administration of 20th-century Britain, the regime that introduced the National Health Service, nationalised one-fifth of the British economy, and granted independence to India.

BBC: Margaret Thatcher ruled from 1979 to 1990

The rest of the money was placed in a sovereign wealth fund that has ever since lavished the British people with the most generous welfare system on the planet and made the National Health Service a beacon of medical research.

CNN: Rewriting history: How UK might have been without Thatcher

The guidelines have been prepared in consultation with the Mental After Care Association, mental health charity Mind, the National Schizophrenia Fellowship, the British Medical Association, public service union Unison, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of General Practitioners.

BBC: Violent patients face ban

Tens of thousands of people have joined a Twitter group expressing pride in the UK's National Health Service (NHS), which offers free taxpayer-funded medical care to all British residents, while leading politicians have spoken out in support.

CNN: Britons pour love on 'evil' healthcare system

With an uplifting, "people power" theme combining references to British history and pop culture, the rambunctious ceremony covered subjects as diverse as the Industrial Revolution, the National Health Service, popular children's book characters including Peter Pan and Mary Poppins, and pop stars past and present.

CNN: Danny Boyle: Olympics Opening Ceremony mastermind