NHS Healthcare: A Glossary Analysis

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

One of the biggest obstacles to successful management of the NHS, and also to any analysis of its current well being, remains the significant lack of any valid information as to what the NHS does, how much it costs and where the money is spent. Indeed, it is perhaps surprising that 'the 1990 changes' were conceived and implemented as fast as they were, given the lack of information that was available in 1988. (Ham, 1996) Attempts were made at the start to ensure that hospitals began from a 'level playing field' so that they were in fair competition with one another, but the sometimes 10 fold differences in the early quoted costs for identical services in different hospitals had as much to do with differing costs of maintaining buildings

Today’s changes to the NHS have been called the most radical in the whole of the 60 years that it’s been in existence. In today’s NHS charities and private firms are now involved much more widely, in areas such as mental health and end of life care. Although they do have a much smaller role in hospital setting than they used to have. One of the biggest changes is that doctors now have budgets from which they buy healthcare, it could be from NHS trusts or private sectors, the new scheme is called GP

The implications and effects on patients waiting long hours to be seen in the ED are immense. In a recent study done over five years in Ontario hospitals showed the risk of adverse events and even deaths increased with the length of stay in the ED (Science Daily, 2011). When EDs become overcrowded the quality of care changes and declines; which is extremely dangerous. Authors of the study calculated that if ED length of stay was cut by only an hour that 150 fewer Ontarians would die each year (Science Daily, 2011). Wait times can also negatively affect patients financially, untreated medical conditions can lead to reduced productivity and inability to work leading to increased financial strains (Fraser Institute, 2014). As well as delayed access to care can result in more complex interventions needed. Therefore an initiative is needed to provide patients with timely, efficient care when accessing

It is an honor to be considered for NHS. To me NHS is a place where gifted individuals can continue to grow as people and polish their talents. As a past NJHS member, I would like to find myself in NHS.

This highlights the importance of the chosen service improvement, not only for individuals with mental health issues but for those at risk of developing mental illness and the NHS as a whole. These recommendations are present in No Health without Mental Health: A Guide for General Practice (DoH, 2012, online), The NHS Outcomes Framework 2012/13 (DoH, 2011, online), and numerous others.

As can be seen in Table 1 below, the resources causing the long wait times are those that are over utilized, or those that show capacity utilizations greater than 100 percent. The only over utilized resource are the Physicians, who are being over utilized by 21 percent. The other major resources are still underutilized.

Queuing theory tends to deal with problems that involve queuing or waiting. Patients tend to wait to be attended to in PATA for a long time. Effectively managing the flow of patients in an outpatient unit is considered to be the key to achieving excellence and ensure clinical quality. Therefore, PATA should adopt the queuing theory. PATA should develop an effective appointment system in order to match with the capacity (Langabeer, 2009). Developing an effective appointment system could also help in better resource utilization and patient waiting times minimization. PATA should also increase expensive personnel’s utilization as well as equipment-based medical resources in order to reduce patients’ waiting times. Under the queuing theory, PATA should develop a management process whereby they should determine how the patients arrive, how they are served, as well as the patient’s condition when exiting the system. In general, queuing theory will help PATA to make decisions concerning resources needed toward providing the service to patients (Langabeer, 2009). It would also assist in calculating a variety of performance measures, including the average waiting time of patients in the

In line with the majority of other developed countries, the United Kingdom (UK) has offered its citizens a universal health care system that is free at the point of service. Funded primarily by taxation, the system is popular and efficient. However, along with most other health care systems around the world, it faces a series of challenges if it is to maintain viability, in the twenty-first century. These issues include; long waiting times, an aging population, funding challenges and the increasing cost of technology.

The National health services (NHS) provides a comprehensive healthcare services across the entire nation. It is considered to be UK’s proudest institution, and is envied by many other countries because of its free of cost health delivery to its population. Nevertheless, it is often seen as a ‘political football’ as it affects all of us in some way and hence everyone carry an opinion about it (Cass, 2006). Factors such as government policies, funding, number of service users, taxation etc all make up small parts of this large complex organisation. Therefore, any imbalances within one sector can pose a substantial risk on the overall NHS (Wheeler & Grice, 2000). This essay will discuss whether the NHS aim of reducing the nations need

Addressing barriers at an individual level will require an emphasis on educating the public on mental health issues. To address systemic barriers that exist at the macro-level, the following policy interventions have been advanced to deal with the treatment gap problem: (i) implementing a ‘life course’ perspective with prime attention to early detection and treatment, (ii) developing mental health literacy programs and campaigns, and (iii) delivering comprehensive, integrated, and responsive mental health and social care services in community-based settings. Each of these are discussed

Problem Statement: The World Health Association defines ‘good’ health as: “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” However, in the United States, access to care and funding for mental health care are grossly neglected and underfunded in comparison to other aspects of health care.

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.

The U.K. has been suffering from patients waiting times for hospital treatments for many years now. Although it is inappropriate not to consider if other developed countries are suffering as much as the UK, the improvements for hospital treatments have little to no improvement at all in the past few years (Appleby et al., 2005). In 2004 the NHS Improvement Plan announced the ’18 week waiting time’ target plan, this was to assure GP’s would refer patients to hospitals for treatment if needed (The King 's Fund, 2016). The UK is still suffering from long delays, although the 18-week waiting time has been put in to action. The waiting lists for patients are growing for medical treatments, operations and tests that a patient may need.

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.