Nhsday Swot Analysis

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How have political trends shaped the NHS since the ‘Appointed Day’ in 1948? The NHS has been a central feature that has dominated health policy in the UK since its foundation in 1948. Successive governments have attempted to reform the way the NHS operates with major structural reorganisations initiated in 1974, 1982, 1990, 1997 and 2002. (Denny & Earle 2005). WW2 revealed the need for a full-scale state health service. So in 1944 the Coalition Government under Churchill produced a plan for a National Health Service, universal and free for everyone at the point of delivery and paid for by National Insurance contributions. With Labour coming into power soon afterwards under Atlee, they took over the plans for the NHS before the National…show more content…
Joseph retained the regional tier in the NHS which, it was hoped, would produce gains through integrated planning and management of capital projects. Hospitals, nursing services, health centres and general practitioners were brought under the control of the new local authorities. These measures were incorporated in the National Health Service Reorganisation Act of July 1973. The tripartite structure of the NHS was thus replaced with a unitary structure based on Area Health Authorities (AHAs) reporting to Regional Health Authorities. Labour returned to government in February 1974, and had little choice but to implement the planned reorganisation. They investigated the system of private health care with the intention of phasing out private practice from the hospital service, but this led to industrial action within the NHS, thus being one of the factors that led to a change of government, and in 1979 Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister. (Morgan…show more content…
General Managers were introduced into the NHS in 1984 in a bid to forge a link between clinicians and costs, and with authority for implementing decisions and greater emphasis on clear leadership. These recommendations were unworkable in the current culture of the NHS and the failures were highlighted by the Minister of Health Ken Clarke who produced a Working for Patients white paper proposing to maintain the basic principles of the NHS; funding mainly through taxation and with no plans to extend patient charges. It allowed hospitals to become self-governing trusts with their own budgets, whilst GPs became fund holders. This led to the ‘internal market’, established through the NHS and Community Care Act of 1990, with health authority and GP purchasers competing for contracts and buying care from acute hospitals, ambulances and service providers for the mentally ill and disabled. Health organisations became NHS trusts, each with their own managers competing against each other. (Ibid, p73). A new Labour government came to power in 1997 under Tony Blair. He promised to ‘save the NHS’ by putting an end to the internal market, encouraging partnership and improving funding. However, NHS trusts continued
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