The Five Giants Foundation

The Five Giants Foundation is a new people powered think tank.

We will bring together frontline workers, service users and senior leaders, in order to understand the new faces of the Five Giants in a modern world. How can we best tackle the issues that have taken root again during austerity, at source, in the most cost effective way? By rooting ourselves in practice, we will be able to rediscover the common sense held by welfare state founders including Nye Bevan and Jim Griffiths. Much of their design for the welfare state in 1948 came from experiments over the previous century which proved what works to prevent ill health, early disability and early death. Early deaths are on the rise again for the first time since 1948. Now is the time for us as a society to rediscover this learning and use it to tackle early death today.

The Five Giants were first recognised officially by the government in the 1937-1939 Welsh TB Inquiry.

This was because of the compelling statistical evidence on higher TB deaths in Wales provided by UK friendly society leader John Tomley, who was responsible for most of the UK’s healthcare for workers at the time. He had also helped found the first ever national health service pilot in the UK, for TB in Wales.

The Welsh TB Inquiry led directly to the Beveridge Report and the set up of the NHS and welfare state in 1948.

John Tomley’s great-granddaughter, Emma Snow, has recently rediscovered John’s work. This was after Emma had already developed her own professional interest in the Five Giants, as a charity CEO supporting unemployed people with disabilities. She has written a book about John’s work fighting the Five Giants, her own experience as a charity and NHS worker fighting the Five Giants, and as a person with a disability, facing early death herself. This inspired her to set up our new people powered think tank, the Five Giants Foundation, with a group of other people with disabilities, some of whom are facing early death, carers, and professionals. Our aim is to help people learn more about the Five Giants today, and how to fight them effectively.

Please join us today, using the form below.