The NHS in the 21st century
This extract from an NHS plan states that the NHS is one of the world鈥檚 biggest employers. It is hardly surprising that it costs a lot of money to run.
The NHS is the biggest employer in Europe and the world鈥檚 largest employer of highly skilled professionals. 1.3 million people across the health service in England are devoting their working lives to caring for others.
Increasing pressure on services
Over the past 30 years or so, various initiatives have been introduced to give patients access to medical advice 24 hours a day. The aim has been to reduce costs and make the NHS more efficient. An example is the creation of NHS Direct in 1996.
Some of the more recent changes to the organisation of the NHS have included:
- In 2002, primary care trusts were created to organise health care at a local level.
- In 2004, foundation trusts were set up to allow NHS staff, and even the general public, to have more freedom over how money was spent and which services were used.
- The 2012 Health and Social Care Act brought further reorganisation. Clinical commissioning groups were created to buy in services for patients from a particular area. This could come from the NHS in other areas or non-NHS companies.
- In 2013, NHS England and Public Health England were split into two separate organisations so that one could concentrate on patient care (NHS England) while the other focused on preventing illness (Public Health England). Both are still under the control of the Secretary of State for Health in the government.
- The 2019 NHS Long Term Plan aims to bring together hospital and community medical care. The goal is to create integrated care providers so as to more effectively organise medical treatment.
- From April 2020, the NHS worked with the armed forces to create regional 鈥楴ightingale鈥 temporary hospitals to deal with the increase in demand for hospital beds during the Covid-19 health care crisis.
The cost of health services
The UK government spent 拢130.3 billion on health services in 2018/2019. This was just under 10 per cent of its GDP - the money a country makes in a year.
Spending in 2019/2020 was 拢150.4 billion and the planned spending for 2020/2021 was 拢212.1 billion. However, this included 拢60 billion extra for helping to deal with the Covid-19 crisis.