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NHS Foundation Trusts Chapter Summary

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Chapter 3: Institutional settings
3.1 NHS and NHS Foundation Trusts
National Health Service (NHS) is a publicly funded health caring system composed by four distinct organizations, namely NHS England, Health and Social Care in North Ireland (HSCNI), NHS Scotland and NHS Wales, with each part operating in its own way. NHS mainly derives money from the country’s tax income, which is paid by all the permanent residences of United Kingdom earning certain amount of income. NHS expenditure takes up the largest proportion of UK’s social benefit expenditure. In this way, about 60 million people in UK are able to enjoy the same-level health care, which also makes the NHS the largest public Health Care System in the world. One thing worth mentioning …show more content…

There were 147 NHS Foundation Trusts in total by March 2014. They are authorised and regulated by Monitor, the independent regulator of NHS foundation trusts, and have more financial independence to retain our surpluses and decide how they utilize this money, compared to other NHS trusts that have not gained a foundational status and are still managed by the NHS Trust Development Authority. Not all the NHS Trusts have become NHS Foundation Trusts yet, as some trusts are in the assessment process. In order to achieve Foundation Trust Status, NHS Trusts have to meet a number of requirements. At the early introduction of foundation trusts, they were regarded as a special unit existing in a way between the public and private sectors, as it is originally designed to be a "patient-led" NHS that can get the local people get fully involved and listen to the patients’ real needs. However, these foundation trusts are not as autonomous as expected, and even behave more like public sectors, as the plans to give financial autonomy to these foundation trust proposed by Alan Milburn being …show more content…

The Council of Governors holds the Board of Directors to account for the performance of the Trust including ensuring the Board of Directors acts within the terms of the licence. Governor feedback information about the Trust to members and the local community through a regular newsletter and information placed on the Trust’s website.
The Council of Governors consists of elected and appointed governors. More than half the governors are public governors elected by community members of the Trust. Elections take place once every year, or on other occasions. As for the Council of Governors, it is generally made up of public governors, appointed governors and staff governors. These governors connect the Board of Directors closely with the public and patients. Governors have statutory role. The governors have control over the direction of the FT even without the Board of Directors' permission. The governors can appoint the chair and directors. Moreover, the board of governors can has the rights to appoint or remove trust auditors. The Council of Governors has in place a process for the appointment of the

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