A Brief Note On Legislation And When The National Health Service ( Nhs ) Essay

In 1928, a national health insurance scheme was proposed but not implemented because it would have required businesses to provide contributions to health insurance for their employees (Evolution of Government Involvement in Health Care, n.d). Another national health insurance scheme was proposed in 1938 but it was also rejected (Evolution of Government Involvement in Health Care, n.d; Hilless & Healy, 2001). The next proposal was the 1945 Pharmaceuticals Benefits Act. This Act was not implemented because the Australian Medical Association challenged it in the High Court of Australia and it was decided that parliament had “exceeded its constitutional power” (Hilless & Healy, 2001). In 1946, under the Hospital Benefits Act, the Commonwealth began to subsidise public hospitals under the condition that patients would not be charged (Evolution of Government Involvement in Health Care, n.d; Hilless & Healy, 2001). This act is similar to the current Medicare system.

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

All people across the globe are entitled to the health attention they require. The World Health Organization has identified five elements to achieve this goal. These include reducing social disparities in health, providing services that meet clients’ expectations, altering public policies to address health, leadership reforms and increasing stakeholder participation (WHO, 2013).

The NHS came around in July 5, 1948. The Health Minister Aneurin (also known as Nye) Bevan purely nationalised the existing system across the UK. The groundbreaking change was to make all services freely available to everyone. Half of Scotland’s landmass was already covered by a state-funded health system serving the entire community and directly run from Edinburgh. Additionally, the war years had seen a state-funded hospital building programme in Scotland on a scale unknown in Europe. This was combined into the new NHS. Scotland also had its own individual medical tradition, this is centred on its medical schools rather than private practice. The legislation that empowered the UK to have the NHS is National Health Service Act (1948), this despite opposition from doctors, who maintained on the right to continue treating some patients privately. The NHS ensured that Doctors, hospital, dentists, opticians, ambulances, midwives and health visitors were available, free to everybody. This Reason why we have health services is because it developments a view that health care was a right, not something given unreliably by charity, also two-party’s agreement that the existing services were in a mess and had to be sorted out, it stopped financial difficulties for the voluntary hospitals and After the second world war it ensured the creation of an emergency medical service as part of the war effort

There was also another part to this act which was free medical treatment but there was a drawback with this part of the act so it was not compulsory and widely ignored by the education authorities. Free medical treatment was only made compulsory in 1912 when grants were provided and clinics set up. This act did help reduce poverty because Inspections began in 1907 and there was provision for treatment. People started to realise that they should care for the health and wellbeing of children which overall reduced their poverty. However few authorities provided free medical treatment so there was no point in inspections without

brought about major change in how hospital and GP services were managed. The NHS nationalised health services but local councils still ran a variety of clinics and services for children. Soon after prescription charges were introduced. The NHS helped to organise hospital services so that areas that were lacking could be identified.

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 report lead to the creation of the Welfare State that includes the National Health Services (NHS). The Beveridge report was not fully implemented by the coalition government until after the general election of 1945 that gave victory to the Labour party. The new prime minister, Clement Attlee, announced he would introduce the welfare state outlined in the 1942 Beveridge Report. The report include the establishment of a National Health Service in 1948 with free medical treatment for all. A national system of benefits was also introduced to provide 'social security' so that the population would be protected from the 'cradle to the grave'. The new system was partly built on the national insurance scheme set up by Lloyd George in 1911. People in work still had to make contributions each week, as did employers, but the benefits provided were now much greater (Bbc.co.uk, 2016).

In 2000, an effort was made by the UK government to resolve certain inequalities that had developed within the NHS by releasing the “NHS Plan of 2000.” This plan greatly increased spending on employee pay, infrastructure, and access to services. Despite almost doubling spending in a ten year period,

Later, findings from a series of reports including report from Royal commission on National Health Insurance in 1926; The Sankey Commission on Voluntary Hospitals in 1937; and reports from British Medical Association (BMA) in 1930 and 1938, all collectively indicated that inadequacy existed in the pattern of the services (Christopher, 2004; Webster, 2002). Evident were reports of conflicting care and duplication of work between the municipal and voluntary hospitals (Wheeler & Grice, 2000). Additionally, world war had a huge impact on the health services and the conditions in which hospitals, theatres, radiology and pathology department operated was very poor. Thus, no machinery existed that supported running of a coordinated healthcare system, hence a need for unified, simplified and cohesive system was felt (Smith, 2007). Furthermore, Royal Commission’s report suggested that funding for the health services might benefit from general taxation rather than its basis on insurance principle (Christopher, 2004). However, it was not until the Beveridge report in 1942, which provided a huge drive and momentum for a movement of change in the health services. And within subsequent years seen were the proposals for NHS drawn through the White Paper in 1944, then in 1946 the National Health Service Act and at last in 1948 the establishment of the NHS

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stated that "The health of the individual is almost inseparable from the health of the larger community and that the health of every community in every state and territory determines the overall health status of the nation." It has now become clear that our economy in terms of healthcare insurance is not healthy; the healthcare system in the United States spends 1 cent of every healthcare dollar in the prevention of diseases and 99 cents on the cure. Our healthcare system is the most expensive and yet arguably among the least cost effective in the developed world. Despite the highest per person health care spending among the Organization for Economic Cooperation

The (NHS) the National Health Service in uk was launched in 1948. (History of the NHS time line 2014). The idea was that good health care should be available to all regardless of wealth.

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.

     Through out the world today health care is a major issue in just about every country. Britain and France are no exception to this rule. Since a very long time ago there have been long standing battles between the people and governments as to how far the governments must go to provide adequate health care for its people. For the upper and middle classes health care usually comes with no problem but for the lower classes they are forced to depend on government assistance.

National Health Service trusts have the mandate to ensure that patients in hospitals get high quality health care and that money is spent efficiently and accountability is observed.