History of the National Health Service
The purpose of this essay is to outline the history of the National
Health Service and why it was introduced into the everyday lives of
the British people.
As the NHS is a major factor of the welfare given to the people of
Britain, we must look at the early years of the Welfare laws and acts
passed down through the centuries, which eventually lead to the
creation of the NHS. The first welfare reforms were known as the 'Poor
Laws', which had their beginnings in the Elizabethan era. In 1601 the
first Poor Laws were passed which basically put each parish in charge
of doling out relief to the parish poor. In theory these new laws
should have been sufficient for the people of the time, however in
practice these laws were not regulated or monitored and if a poor
person moved, they were not entitled to any relief in their new
parish. These laws remained largely unchanged until the new Poor Law
Amendment acts of 1834, which was only brought in after much
campaigning from around the land. This new law allowed a person to
accept a place into a 'House', commonly known as the Work House.
Although the poor person was given shelter and food in return for a
days work, the conditions endured were often worse than what was
experienced by the recipient before entering this 'charitable'
institution, the reason for this was to put off any vagabonds who were
too lazy to work an honest days work thus ensuring only the needy and
desperate would apply for help. (Joanne de Pennington-Beneath the
Surface: A Country of Two Nations. / Frank Field-The Welfare
State-Never Ending Reform. These two sources are from www.bb...
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...APHY
Leathard Audrey. (1991) Health Care provision: past, present and
future, Bury St Edmunds England
Powell Martin A. (1997) Evaluating the National Health Service,
Buckingham England
Briggs Asa. (08/04/03) Reforming Acts
www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/protest_reform/reforming_actsprint
Professor Eric Evans. (08/04/03) Laissez-Faire and the Victorians
www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/welfare/laissezfaire_print.html
Frank Field-The Welfare State-Never Ending Reform
www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/welfare//field_01.shtml
Joanne de Pennington-Beneath the Surface: A Country of Two Nations.
www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/welfare/bsurface_print.html
The NHS explained (08/04/03) www.nhs.uk/thenhsexplained/history
Welcome to the NHS (08/04/03) www.nhs.uk/thenhsexplained/history
Similar to other professions and/or social issues, there has been tremendous growth within the history of the human services field. There are different specializations that fall under this professional spectrum such as mental health, social work, and crisis intervention as well as several others. Dating back to the 1700s, individuals have been providing services and resources to those in need. Although each era may has placed different emphasis on specific areas, the general operation still remained the same. For example, the age of systems era and the professionalization of human services era focused on different issues but yet shared collective objectives.
“The NHS was created as one of the pillars of the welfare state, however, it was soon consuming a large proportion of welfare spending; this issue of cost has remained an important factor throughout the history of the NHS.”
olds who now had to go to school because the government had made a law
Its bid was to reduce health expenditure by deporting individuals who did not have visas or were uncertain surrounding their immigration status. Agraharkar further argued that deportation of patients is merely a discharge of the prohibition of patient dumping as well as unavailability of health resources. Blalock and Wolfe (2001) found the reason for the increase in patient dumping is related to the underfunded health care system. Only after the law requiring all hospitals to provide medical assistant that the incidence became greater. Additionally, hospitals who provide care to uninsured patients are not often reimbursed for their service. Thus, this trend of patient dumping greatly affects low-income/SES citizens. (2016) report a link between SES and health is due to inequalities in resources. (2016) detailed the fundamental cause theory to be the overall underlying cause of many health inequalities, such as patient dumping. This theory seeks to demonstrate the association between SES and health inequalities (patient dumping) over time to a lack of range of resources to guard and/or improve
During the mid-twentieth century American’s view of nurses was drastically changing according to Judd & Sitzman the authors of “A History of American Nursing: Trends and Eras.” Prior to this time period the job of a nurse was not something that was very valued. The women who chose this work were not looked upon as highly as they are today. Judd & Sitzman write that during this time “nurses were respected, revered, and deemed professionals; they were portrayed in recruitment posters.” Nursing was now a profession women could actually seek to do outside of the home that was not frowned upon. Nursing was now being viewed as a valued profession. The mere fact that there were recruitment posters being created and displayed proves this point.
Nurse Practitioning is a very important job in the field of medicine. In the nursing field the highest degree attainable while holding the status of “Nurse” is Nurse Practitioner (NP). This career has influenced the nursing world in several ways throughout the years. A few key things that set Nurse Practitioning apart from other medical professionals are the history and background of the job, the quality care provided by the nurse practitioner, and the different responsibilities help by an NP as opposed to those of an RN. These are important because nurse practitioners can be compared to other physicians, the history changed how people looked at and thought of nurses, and NPs can perform different and possibly more advanced activities than other level nurses. The history of nurse practitioning is more detailed and complex than one would think. Throughout the history of the profession, small detail have been refined such as the education, training, and responsibilities required to be effective in the career and the job prospect that come from being trained and certified. There are several things that go into the finely tuned care provided by nurse
Many pivotal events over the last century have brought our healthcare system to where it is today. Some were indirect, such as World War II (and how it led to direct events such as medical advances that shifted focus from critical care and managing contagion to preventive medicine and health insurance as an employee benefit) and the internet (which has provided a wealth of tools and resources that were once only available to healthcare providers and has served to foster technological advancements such as Electronic Health Records and telemedicine). Others were targeted interventions, such as the Hill-Burton Act, which was enacted in 1946 and provided infrastructure dollars to healthcare facilities that agreed to provide a significant volume of free or reduced cost services to those with limited ability to pay (HRSA, 2014). Perhaps the most influential targeted event was the passage of Medicare and Medicaid programs, which was the point at which the government became the administrator for insurance programs for the poor, creating a system that would continuously grow and impact service delivery through regulatory control.
of the population is responsible for 80% of the total health care costs, and much more. It does
Registered nurses provide care and medical information to patients. Registered nurses are considered the backbone of the healthcare system. There is plenty of history, requirements, and outlooks on Registered nurses.
...also be able to pay and reward doctors and nurses who treat people like patients and not numbers. As we have clearly seen, medicine for profit is not solving the problems of the healthcare system and many people are going bankrupt, dying, and choosing suicide over costly bills. Maybe we should learn from all of these situations and numbers and see that like the UK did, we should be looking at ways to expand our basic human rights to include healthcare.
The NHS will provide a universal service for all based on clinical need, not ability to pay.
The NHS was founded on similar principles as Canada- universal, free to a point, equitable and paid by central funding (Grosios et al, 2010). Over the years, the NHS has seen numerous organizational and political changes, but still remains universal and offers care to people who need it and are not able to pay for it. The NHS is funded by national insurance contributions and taxes. The healthcare policy and healthcare delivery is a responsibility of the central government in England, whereas in Wales, Scotland and Northern Island it is the responsibility of the local governments. In the UK, the NHS is composed of two major sections- one which deals with policy, strategy and management and other section that deals with medical care; this department is further subdivided into community care, pharmacy, dentistry and general medical practice. In Britain there are many barriers in seeking specialty care; one has to see a general practitioner first, who is a gate keeper and decides on where and who gets specialty care. It can often take years to bypass this gatekeeper because there are very few specialists in the country. In the past two decades, there has been a major shift in funding moving away from central government to local counties. The UK healthcare center is facing cutbacks in funding and complaints of long waits to see surgeons and specialists is common.
and provide better quality of care through their services which can benefit greatly for many
... the elderly of Irish society it is also evident that there are issues over medical cards, problems with waiting lists, private consultations fees and shortages of beds as well as a general deterioration of quality of services on offer at care home facilities. Problems in the healthcare system provide incentives that favour the treatment of private patients over public patients. Such differences have effectively consolidated the two-tiered system. Recommendations to eliminate health care inequalities would be to introduce the government's proposal of the universal social health insurance scheme. For this to be achieved citizen engagement is important to abolish the current range of inequalities embedded in the Irish Healthcare system. The principle of equity could then potentially be enhanced and thus create a more equal society not based on money but based on need.
Similarly, diverting the money from the monarchy to statutory areas such as health would greatly reduce the cuts made in hospitals across the UK. “More than 5,400 nursing posts have been cut since the coalition came to power, as NHS trusts tighten budgets in the wake of an unprecedented slowdown in health spending.” (The Independent, 2013). Money invested into the health sector would help to reduce waiting lists, increase the number of beds currently available resulting in better care for sick patients and would even save lives, as the money would be available to facilitate medical research.