Originally entitled The End Beds, the play - based on Nichols' time in hospitals where he received treatment for a collapsed lung - was originally written for television, but the playwright received no enthusiastic response from anyone to whom he submitted it. When Kenneth Tynan and Laurence Olivier approached him to write a play for the National Theatre, Nichols offered them the slightly revised work, retitled The National Health. It premiered in 1969 and proved to be a critical and commercial success, named Best New Play by the Evening Standard. The BBC then asked Nichols if he would like to adapt the play for a television production.