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Strengths And Weaknesses Of The United Kingdom

Decent Essays

There are many strengths and weaknesses associated with the United Kingdoms (UK) National Health Service (NHS) as a health care system. The aim of this essay is to analyse what these may be and link the findings to how well they compare to other healthcare systems of developed countries. There are many pros and cons of the NHS which shall be further examined such as its aim to breakdown healthcare inequalities in the UK and costs for patients as well as how resources are used within the system. Using statistics of past surveys, the NHS can be compared to other healthcare systems of developed countries such as the United States, Germany and Canada, all of which shall be reviewed in this essay.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) …show more content…

This fits in with one of the NHS' core principles which is that healthcare should be “based on clinical need, not ability to pay” (NHS England, 2015, online). The NHS is 98.8% tax funded from general taxation and national insurance (The King's Fund, 2016, online). This demonstrates that medical facilities are funded by the public and that healthcare is available to anyone who may need it and is entitled to use it as they have paid for it through their taxes. This also helps to keep patients calm as they usually do not have to worry about incurring any expensive bills after using the NHS. However, while it is mostly a benefit to its patients to not worry about any upfront costs, there is also a downside. This, being that resources are stretched and so certain more expensive treatments may be off limits under the NHS (Gardner, 2015, online). The NHS bases its decisions on an “evidence-based process to ensure the drugs available offer the best clinical benefits”(Gardner, 2015, online). This essentially means that the commissioning board has to take into consideration their budget allowance as well as the number of patients whose quality of life can …show more content…

This crosses over well with another core principle of the NHS: they offer “high-quality care that is safe, effective and focused on patient experience” (NHS England, 2015, online) rather than whatever may benefit the doctors. Patients can be sure that they are being provided the correct treatment and not anything that healthcare professionals have been told to upsell from a business point of

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