Medical advances, new technology, NHS reorganisation and social change mean today's hospitals are almost unrecognisable from what was happening in some of these pictures from the Evening News archives, which capture the health service in Edinburgh in the 1950s and 1960s.
Yet the doctors, nurses and other staff all these decades ago had the same purpose as their counterparts today - to deliver the best possible care and treatment for their patients.
When some of these pictures were taken the National Health Service was less than 10 or 20 years old. Have a look through this picture gallery and get a feel for the atmosphere of the time.

21. Helicopter arrival
A nurse stands by to receive her patient from an RAF helicopter which landed in the Meadows Edinburgh, with an injured soldier in April 1969. | TSPL Photo: Jack Wallace