National Health Service

For more information on National Health Service, visit Britannica.com.

Type: Government Agency
On the web: http://www.nhs.uk
Employees: 1,400,000

In England, health care may be (mostly) free, but somebody has to watch over it. The National Health Service (NHS) administers the country's health care and dental services, with funding and support from its Department of Health. The system is divided into ten regional strategic health authorities, and those are divided into trusts, which include about 30,000 doctors and 18,000 dentists, 1,600 hospitals, and 13 ambulance groups. The NHS provides care through gatekeeper physicians (sometimes referred to as "consultants") who direct patients to specialists and more complex treatment as needed. It also runs NHS Direct, a phone, online, and interactive TV service designed to manage the flow of patients to clinics.

Key numbers for fiscal year ending April, 2008:
Sales: $54,037.2M

Officers:
Chief Executive: David Nicholson
Director General Finance, Performance, and Operations: David Flory
CIO: Christine Connelly

Competitors:
AXA PPP
BUPA
Nuffield Hospitals

Established in 1948, the NHS grew out of the Second World War's reconstruction planning of social and medical services, after long debate over health-care provision (Dawson Report, 1920; Cathcart Report, 1936; Sankey Commission, 1937). The 1942 Beveridge Report assumed that a satisfactory social security scheme depended on ‘comprehensive health and rehabilitation services for prevention and cure of disease and restoration of the capacity to work’. Aneurin Bevan established a tripartite administration: local authorities (for existing clinics and new health centres), panel practice, and nationalized hospitals (conceding some private practice for consultants, and giving teaching hospitals special status). Since the new service was entirely free to patients, funding had to come from taxation, but Beveridge's view that costs would lessen as the nation's health slowly improved had not allowed for technological advances such as joint replacements. The introduction of charges for prescriptions, dental, and ophthalmic treatment (1951) led to Bevan's resignation on grounds of principle. Accusations of extravagance proved unfounded (Guillebaud Report, 1956), and hospital-building, application of medical advances, and staff expansion continued to be sustained by economic growth. Total spending continued to rise. As resources were shifted away from patient care into administration, the morale of many NHS employees plummeted. Though the widespread consensus of earlier decades had been shattered by the strains of 1980s' confrontational government, public confidence in the service continued high. But concern at the ever-rising cost of the service has prompted proposals for closer collaboration with the private sector.

National Health Service (England) logo

Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland logo

NHS Scotland

NHS Wales

The National Health Service (NHS) is the name commonly used to refer to the three publicly funded healthcare systems in Great Britain, collectively or individually, although only the health service in England uses the name 'National Health Service' without further qualification. The publicly-funded healthcare organisation in Northern Ireland does not use the term 'National Health Service', though is still sometimes referred to as the 'NHS' as well.^[1] Each system operates independently, and is politically accountable to the relevant devolved government of Scotland (Scottish Government), Wales (Welsh Assembly Government) and Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Executive), and to the UK government for England.

There is no discrimination when a patient resident in one country of the United Kingdom requires treatment in another, except in the case of NHS abortions where women from Northern Ireland must pay for the service in mainland Britain. The consequent financial matters and paperwork of such inter-working are dealt with between the organisations involved and there is generally no personal involvement by the patient comparable to that which might occur when a resident of one European Union member country receives treatment in another.

For details of each of the four national health services in the United Kingdom, see:

• National Health Service (England),
• NHS Scotland,
• NHS Wales, and
• Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland.

References

1. ^ Hospital warns of 'Third World' NHS BBC News, 30 August 2000

External links

• 'BIRTH OF THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE | How the state of the nation's health became a political ideal', a BBC Archive collection of programmes and documents.
• Celebrating 60 years of the NHS in Scotland (useful insight into the distinct development of public healthcare in Scotland)
• NHS Choices — The website for England's NHS

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