British Healthcare System

Heath Care in the United Kingdom The British Health Care system (or National Healthcare Service NHS) is one of the best in the world. The British government, through the National Health Service, provides the majority of health care. The program is funded by taxes, and the entire system is free at the point of service. Each nation has its own part of the health care service, so, National Health Service (England) Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland (HSENI), NHS Scotland, and NHS Wales. Each system operates independently, but if a citizen needs treatment in another country isn’t a problem.

Foreign nationals will receive free treatment if they are in an emergency in the United Kingdom, and if you become a permanent resident of the UK and have been there for 12 months you will also receive free healthcare. About 18% or (4. 9% of their GDP from 2000-10) of the United Kingdom’s budget is used on the NHS, or about ? 119 billion ($190 billion). The Conservatives are very fond of their brilliant health care plan of course, saying that: “The NHS is our country’s most precious asset.

Over the last two years, because of the dedication of staff across the country, the NHS has maintained or improved quality across the board – reducing waiting times to record lows, reducing hospital infections to their lowest levels ever, increasing access to dentistry, delivering more doctors and fewer administrators, and giving thousands of patients the cancer drugs they need” (Conservatives) Currently, there is plenty of criticism surrounding the NHS among the shadow party, one major issue being that the ‘NHS is on a fast track to fragmentation. –Andy Burnham the shadow health secretary. “He said politicians needed to challenge the assumption that autonomy always led to improvement. While some organizations had thrived on autonomy, such as inner city teaching hospitals, others had struggled – leading to high profile failures such as the deaths at Mid Staffordshire hospital. We are genuinely at a big fork in the road,” Burnham said. “We’re on a fast track to fragmentation. Partnership is very important in that context.

Once it’s been smashed to bits we have to try and glue bits back together. He said the key partnership in the sector was between health and local government, adding that he feared placing commissioning in the hands of clinicians would lead to a patient-centred, rather than person-centred, approach to health. ” (Guardian) There is still much to be done to make perfect the NHS. The Conservatives have about 6 main goals that needs to get done in the near future: * Cutting the cost of NHS administration * “We will cut NHS bureaucracy by ? 4. billion over the course of this Parliament and reinvest every penny straight into frontline patient services. ” * Giving more power to patients * We will allow patients the choice to register with a GP practice of their choice for the first time. * We will roll out personal health budgets allowing people to have more choice, flexibility and control over the health services and care they receive * Giving doctors and nurses the power to commission services for their patients * We will hand over commissioning power to the 212 Clinical Commissioning Groups in April 2013. Conservatives) Also, another criticism is that there could be a possibility for User Spending as stated by Professor Lord Darzi: “A review of the NHS prompted criticism of the government and the department of health for paving the way for user charging, and so contradicting the NHS Plan 2000 which stated that “user charges are unfair and inequitable in they increase the proportion of funding from the unhealthy, old and poor compared with the healthy, young and wealthy”.