United Kingdom National Health Service

After the serious shortcomings within the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust came to light, The Francis Report (Francis, 2013) investigated how the conditions of inexcusable care could prevail within the trust. The Francis Report proposed several extensive changes that could improve the National Health Service (NHS). Garner (2014) informs that these changes include that leaders need to be effective and accountable, staff should be empowered to work in partnership, each trust should aim to improve innovation and quality, whilst putting the patient first. The Department of Health (DH) reflected on the findings and in response to The Francis

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.

The three issues that these experts notice include: the very poor management with lack of leadership, overspending on medication, doctors, and facilities; and lack of information being circulated throughout the health care service. Rachel Mendleson of the Canadian Business archive explains some of the problems with our current health care system in detail. To start off with, management is labelled as being very inefficient. Money is being wasted, there is a lack of desire to scavenge valuable information for better treatment, keeping records of treatment outcomes, and reducing the chances of unnecessary duplicate treatments. (Mendleson) It is argued that our health care system would benefit more if it would be viewed as a corporation with strong and co-ordinated leadership, planning, and spending. It is clear that the state of the health care system right now appears to be disorganized and poorly managed. An effective solution would be to introduce a system of corresponding responsibilities among different members in this field. This way, someone will be liable to provide effective management and explanations how the money will be spent. (Mendleson) This brings up the next issue of overspending towards medication, doctors, and hospitals. Rachel Mendleson writes, “the share of drugs in the total health expenditure increased from 9.5% to 16.5%... evidence suggests that Government

Starting with the organizational structure of the NHS, it is basically an umbrella organization that comprises of four regional branches, in particular, NHS (England), NHS Scotland, Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland and NHS Wales. The financing for all these institutions comes from a universal source, particularly the tax-payer money of residents of UK, although they operate to an extent as self-governing institutions. The treasury allocates money to the department of Health, which in turn allocates money to NHS England (Understanding the new NHS). In other words, the top executives of these four institutions take decisions independently for day to day operations although they abide by broader governing directives applicable to the UK region as a whole. Governance is an important aspect of the operating of the NHS, for without it exploitation by private vested interests is likely to happen. (National Health Service (NHS): A study of its Structure, Funding and Regulation, Strengths and Weaknesses, n.d.)

The NHS has grown to become the world’s largest publicly funded health service system since 1948(Nhs.uk, 2015).There are many issues and disputes in NHS. Nowadays,some people believe that the NHS should be abolished or privatized,because it can solve many issues with NHS.This essay agree that the NHS should not be abolished or privatized.

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

The similarities between the 19th, 20th and 21st Century was that famous personalities mentioned above aimed at improving the health of the populace over time. They all carried out numerous investigations and research to bring about positive results. In the 21st, there was the Health Protection Agency, an independent organisation that focuses on protecting individuals’ health throughout the UK. There is also the National Institute for Clinical Excellency also an independent organisation; their responsibility is to provide national guidance and treatment of ill-health which has improved the living standard, condition and a huge improvement of health in the wider UK population.

In this article I am going to describe the key features of public health strategies as they relate to current times in the UK.

In 1974 reform of the NHS seen eliminated the involvement of local authorities in health, set up community health councils, introduced area health authorities and changed the management of family doctor services (JISC 2015). The conservative Government reforms of the NHS bought much controversy, supporters claimed the reforms brought increased efficiency and effectiveness, but opponents said they undermined the founding principles of the health service (BBC 1999). However the spending cost of the NHS was a concern, with an ageing population and increase of new advance technology, experts said that the NHS needed above inflation increases of at least 1% a year simply to stand still (BBC 1999). The government, inspired by the Griffiths Report (1983), blamed disorganised management and structures within the NHS for the cash problems (BBC 1999). The National Health Service and Community Act of 1990 was the future explanation (BBC

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.

From the 1950s onwards the scale and quality of the treatment provided by the National Health Service (NHS) improved, and between 1948

Service improvement is arguably one of the most important challenges facing the National Health Service (NHS) today, as both patients and service users search for a ‘good quality’ service, and expect services to be both efficient and effectual. All staff within the health service need to be educated and competent in their roles, in order to be able to offer a service that is beneficial to the patients that make use of it.

The NHS Operating Framework introduced by the coalition government sets out the planning and financial requirements for RUHB in 2012/13 and the basis of their accountability (DH, 2012). As a result, the 2013 certified that funding for health in England be frozen for up 2015/16 thereby requiring RUBH to underspend allocated funding from the government such as putting a 1% cap on pay award. Socially, this will include factors such as behavior of staff and service users, partnership working, quality of care, etc. These factors can drive change in diverse ways in the RUHB. For example, the NICE Guidelines on Behavior Change make recommendations on individual level behavior interventions that is aimed at changing the behavior that can be dangerous to the health of staff and service users such as smoking, alcohol abuse, lack of physical activity, safe sex, etc. (NICE, 2014). Technologically, the introduction of information communication technology has resulted in faster communication, appropriate storing and sharing of information and records of service users between health and social care professionals. As a result of the CQC inspection, the RUHB revises their health records management policy to more accurately reflect where information about service user such as fluid intake and output in each ward should be recorded (CQC Report, 2013)

Lifestyle choices such as smoking, drinking alcohol, poor diet and lack of physical exercise have many diseases associated with them. In 2006-07, patients with these diseases cost the NHS a combined total of £18.4bn (Scarborough et al. 2011). If the NHS limited treatment to these groups of people, it would be able to invest this money into other areas of need. This could lead to improved facilities for people who become ill through no fault of their own.

Socio-cultural - The Office for National Statistics (ONS) state that, since 1964, the population of the UK has grown by over ten million (about half of this growth has occurred since 2001), in addition the average age of a UK citizen has increased by four years. This means that not only does NHS