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Issue Description
Following the US debate on free healthcare, there has been much discussion of our own National Health Service. Are we lucky to have healthcare which is free at the point of access, or is the NHS riddled with problems such as bureaucracy and overworked staff? How should it be decided which medicines should be free and which shouldn’t? Is free healthcare a right, or a privilege? This book looks at the complex relationship between individual health and state-provided healthcare.
The information comes from a wide range of sources and includes government reports and statistics, newspaper reports, features, magazine articles and surveys, literature from lobby groups and charitable organisations.
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Key Facts
- The NHS currently employs 133,662 doctors, 408,160 qualified nursing staff, and 39,913 managers. (page 3)
- The NHS deals with over a million patients every 36 hours. (page 4)
- The National Health Service was established on 5 July 1948. For the first time hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and dentists provided services that were free for all at the point of delivery. (page 8)
- 44% of people surveyed by YouGov felt that ‘a great deal of money’ was being wasted in the NHS. (page 13)
- Most patients are satisfied with the care they receive at their surgery (91%), including 56% who are very satisfied. Only four percent are dissatisfied. (page 16)
- Doctors have been named the profession most trusted by the general public for the 25th year running, according to the latest Ipsos MORI survey commissioned by the Royal College of Physicians. (page 18)
- The NHS is cheap by international standards. For example, the UK spent 7.1% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health care in 2000, most of this on the NHS, while the average for the rest of the European Union (EU) in 1998 (latest data available) was 9.2%. (page 25)
- Critics say that the NHS is not as efficient as it could be. Some hospitals need to be closed and the resources transferred into community health care. (page 26)
- Nuffield Trust research suggests the NHS in England spends less and has fewer doctors, nurses and managers per head of population than the health services in the devolved countries, but that it is making better use of the resources it has in terms of delivering higher levels of activity, crude productivity of its staff and lower waiting times. (page 30)
- The Government has announced that from 2013, all nurses will be educated to degree level. The proposal, which is supported by all the key national nursing bodies, is designed to make sure that new nurses are better equipped to improve the quality of patient care. (page 34)
- Adopting principles from employee owned organisations, such as the major UK retail group the John Lewis Partnership, may help the NHS engage staff and deliver better services, says a report from the Nuffield Trust. (page 37)
- 57% of respondents in an Ipsos MORI survey said that the most important thing for them to feel they were being treated with privacy and dignity during a stay in hospital would be making sure the hospital is clean. (page 37)
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Table of Contents
Chapter One: The NHS
About the NHS – an overview, Private healthcare, Key statistics on the NHS, What is the NHS?, The changing health service, NHS 60 years on: snails, snow and Matron, NHS 60 – health protection timeline, How healthy are we?, The NHS at 60, The NHS Constitution, The GP patient survey 2009/10, Doctors once again the most trusted profession, ‘Evil and Orwellian’, Why we love the NHS, What is NICE and how does it work?, Should NHS offer incentives to improve health?
Chapter Two: Healthcare Problems
Has the NHS been successful?, Patients not numbers, people not statistics, Common hospital superbugs, Fall in deaths linked to C. difficile and MRSA, England is ‘poor relation’ of NHS devolution, Devolved healthcare, NHS facing tough choices, GP-patient relationship in need of first aid.
Chapter Three: Healthcare Solutions
New legal rights for NHS patients, Nurses to have degrees from 2013, Undermining nursing care by degrees, NHS ‘could learn from John Lewis’, An NHS strategy for a new era.
Key Facts
Glossary
Index
Additional Resources
Acknowledgements
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The Study Guide for: Health and the State - Volume 187
Each book in the Issues series has a study guide. These four-page guides provide a variety of discussion points and other activities to suit a wide range of ability levels and interests.
Publisher: Independence Educational Publishers
Price: £1.95
ISBN: 978 1 86168 538 4