Aneurin Bevan's Social Health Reform

The NHS began in 1948 as a result of an act of Parliament in 1946, under the guidance of Aneurin Bevan, then a Minister of the incumbent Labour Government, and in response to the Beveridge Report on The Welfare State of 1942. Most hospitals in the UK had previously been operated as non-profit making concerns. About two-thirds of them had been run by Local Authorities (the bodies also responsible for local Fire Services, Schools, Roads etc), with about one third of them run independently as Voluntary Hospitals. With the NHS act, these were all compulsorily acquired and subsequently administered by the State, and all treatments became universally available at no cost at the point of provision, the

This assignment will be describing the structures of health and social care within the British Welfare state. This includes looking at the roles of different sectors, agencies, professions and the distinction between health and social care. It will then analyse the relationships between both health and social care and its wider historical, ideological and social context. Lastly, it will compare structures and contexts of health and social care within two nations of the United Kingdom.

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane” –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The National Health System began in 1948 with the aim to provide free health care for the English thus removing health access inequities. This essay considers two strengths of the NHS, being free health and locally responsive health care and two weaknesses being the financial burden and unprecedented pressure on health care resources.

This essay will examine how the development of the Welfare State and the NHS changed the lives of the people of Britain since its introduction in 1948. To enable me to do so, I will analyse and evaluate the key relevant aspects that happened during that period.

The National health services (NHS) provides a comprehensive healthcare services across the entire nation. It is considered to be UK’s proudest institution, and is envied by many other countries because of its free of cost health delivery to its population. Nevertheless, it is often seen as a ‘political football’ as it affects all of us in some way and hence everyone carry an opinion about it (Cass, 2006). Factors such as government policies, funding, number of service users, taxation etc all make up small parts of this large complex organisation. Therefore, any imbalances within one sector can pose a substantial risk on the overall NHS (Wheeler & Grice, 2000). This essay will discuss whether the NHS aim of reducing the nations need

In the “Marmot Review: Fair Society Healthy Lives” written by “Professor Michael Marmot” himself, he proposes the most effective evidence-based strategies for reducing health inequalities in England. Inequality is unjust and unfair and therefore it is a matter of social justice in cases where everyone has an equal,social, political and economical rights and opportunities.He simply stated that to reduce the steepness of the gradient sufficiently “actions must be universal, but with a scale and intensity that is proportionate to the level of disadvantage” Even though resources may be scarce and it is tempting to focus these limited resources on the most needy, we are eliminating some parts of the society and therefore only tackling a small part of the overall problem. Part of his solution was to “implement an evidence-based programme of ill health preventive interventions that are effective across the social gradient such as Increasing and improving the scale and quality of treatment programmes and focusing on public health interventions such as smoking cessation programmes on reducing the social gradient” Michael Marmot also raises the benefits to which reducing health inequalities will help the economy as well as socially. “It is estimated that inequality in illness accounts for productivity losses of £31-33 billion per year, lost taxes and higher welfare payments in the range of £20-32 billion per

It has been widely accepted that rationing of the National Health Service (NHS) is paramount to maintaining and balancing public resources. In a utopian world it would be possible to provide every patient with every medical treatment that they would require, however this is not possible and therefore rationing has to be applied by local health authorities. Simply, there are not enough resources and medical staff available to keep up with the ever evolving demands of the public, and once more, these medical resources can’t at times tend to the needs of the medical advancements made every day. Some equipment and medicines are extremely costly and the NHS struggles to balance public budgets in the face of such advancements. One survey of a primary care trust in the NHS found that the panel that made that decision about funding new treatments was faced with applications that would have

Today’s changes to the NHS have been called the most radical in the whole of the 60 years that it’s been in existence. In today’s NHS charities and private firms are now involved much more widely, in areas such as mental health and end of life care. Although they do have a much smaller role in hospital setting than they used to have. One of the biggest changes is that doctors now have budgets from which they buy healthcare, it could be from NHS trusts or private sectors, the new scheme is called GP

It also proposed a national health service that would be free of charge and available to all. In 1948 Aneurin Bevan launched the NHS “The NHS was created out of the ideal that good healthcare should be available to all, regardless of wealth.” (nhs.uk). The core principles of the NHS were that it should meet the needs of everyone, be free at the point of delivery and be based on the need for treatment rather than the ability to pay. The NHS provided a completely free service until 1951 when fees for prescriptions, dental treatments and eye treatments were introduced, today the service still remains free to use and the fees for such things are something that can be squashed if you are above or below a certain age or in receipt of a particular benefit. Becoming a welfare state meant that there was now a minimum standard of living that each person in Britain should not fall below with benefits being issued for unemployment, sickness, retirement and maternity on the basis that everyone contributes to

The healthcare system has come under heavy criticism from experts from all over the world. According to Schroder, 44% of the population has no access to the healthcare system. (Schroder, 2003) There are many clinics which charge are free of cost or are charging lesser fees, but all of these are burdened and do not have the capability to meet the requirements. There are certain ethnic communities that are by enlarge poor who are of the opinion that they have been deliberately been left out of the healthcare system. These have led to the

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 came into force with crucial principles including new structures and arrangements in health care services to safeguard and strengthen the future of NHS and maintain the modernisation plan. In this Act, many new changes has been made to a number of existing Acts, National Health Services Act (NHS 2006), in order to enable health care system to tackle the existing challenges and also avoid any potential crisis in future. It has also introduced the proper allocation of NHS fund and budget, and improved the integrated care between NHS and social care services to promote patients’ choice in terms of delivering quality care.

This assignment will discuss the core values that underpin social and health service delivery and will compare the current health service provision with health care services at the inception of the NHS. The NHS has seven core values that aim to ensure that quality care is delivered to everyone regardless of their gender, religion, race, age, wealth or sexual orientation. These values have been developed by the general public, patients and staff, with local authorities having to develop and adapt these to provide personalised care. These values not only underpin the social and health delivery service, but also influence the legislation regarding care. For example the Care Act 2014 looks at integrating care, involving the patient and carer

This essay seeks to discuss the factors that facilitate change in health and social care. This can be achieved by assessing the challenges that the major factors of change bring using the Care Quality Commission of the Quality Care Commission for the Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust (RUHB). The second task aims to evaluate contemporary changes being inaugurated in the provision of health and social care services. In addition to this, a strategy and criteria will be devised in order to measure these recent changes including how the impact of these changes can be measured and evaluated.

Good health is the most important asset of any individual or society as it is essential in enabling the people of these societies to reach their full potential both socially and economically. The main goal of the Irish Government is to improve the health and wellbeing of their citizens. An ambitious plan has been set out in order to reform the Irish healthcare system. This reform will include the introduction of a single-tier system which aims to deliver proactive care to the people of Ireland, in an efficient manner. A single tier system will mean the contribution from everyone, for everyone.