Part of The Student Room Group

  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

Did the NHS 1990 and Community Care Reforms improve or worsen the provision of health and social care in Britain?

Extracts from this document...

Introduction

Did the NHS 1990 and Community Care Reforms improve or worsen the provision of health and social care in Britain? National Health Service was created to provide a free healthcare service for everyone, based on need and not ability to pay. During its existing years, the NHS was highly criticized, especially of the costs and its financial difficulties. The financial crisis let to changes in structure over and over again, as well as organization over the service. The Governments attempts to improve the effectiveness of the service resulted in advantages and disadvantages alike (Birchenall, Birchenall, 1998). This essay will look at the NHS 1990 and Community Care Reforms and the impact it had on health and social care provision. Since the beginning of National Health Services (NHS) in 1948, Governments made a lot of attempts to change and improve health services in Britain. However, the biggest reform was seen when The Conservatives came into government and had been forced to review health care costs as economic crisis were still rising (Moon, Gillespie, 1995). The Conservatives with leader Thatcher, as a prime minister, encouraged the private market with expectations to reduce public expenditure. ...read more.

Middle

Consequantly, the 1990 Act have brought potential benefits and according to Raffet (1997), the 1990 Act ?consitutes the most controversial and far ? reaching set of reforms yet undertaking?. From then on, the purchaser could choose a better value deal as well as recognize who was providing what services and the Health Authorities baed the purchase of service on the assess of needs of population which could possible lead to greater health services (Leathard, 2000). However, the internal market revealed comlexity and drawbacks. Firstly, it was claimed that more public money been used to buy private services while purchasers disharged hopsital patients to community earlier in a bid to save some money, which made clear that internal market unlikely to survive without extra funding (Leathard, 2000). Hospital and Community Services could no longer rely on annual budget and had to compete with each other in business that lead to financial dificulties (Pollock, Talbot ? Smith, McNakky, 2006). As a result 1990-1994, the 245 hospitals were closed in Engalnd and Wales. As well as this, studies have proved that competition in the market may actually have had a negative impact on the quality of care provision. ...read more.

Conclusion

(1998) Sociology as Applied to Nursing and Health Care. Edinburgh: Bailliere Tindall Carrier, J., Kendall, I., (1998.) Health and the National Health Service. London: Athlone Press Fotaki, M., (1999). The Impact of Market Oriented Reforms on choices and information: a case study of cataract in outer London and Stockholm. Social Science and Media. 48 (10), 1415-32 Le Grand J, Mays N, Mulligan J. Learning (1998) NHS Internal Market. London: King's Fund, Present and into 21st Century. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes Ltd Leathard, A. (2000) Health Care Provision: Past Moon, G., Gillespie, R., (1995) Society and Health: an Introduction to Social Science for Health Professionals. London: Routledge NHS History, From cradle to Grave ? the first 60 years of the NHS. Online. Available from http://www.nhshistory.net/contents.htm [Accessed 24th October, 2013] Pollock, A., Talbot ? Smith, A., McNally, N. (2006) The New NHS: The Guade. London: Routledge Propper, C, Burgess, S, Gossage, D, Competition and quality: Evidence from the NHS internal market 1991-9, ECON J, 2008, Vol: 118, Pages: 138 ? 170 Raffel, M. W. (1997) Health care and Reform in Industrialized Countires. USA: The Pennsylvania University Press Siciliani L, Martin S. An empirical analysis of the impact of choice on waiting times. Health Economics. 2007;16(8):763-79. 80 Working for Patients. (1989) Department of Health. London, HMSO ...read more.

The above preview is unformatted text

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our University Degree Political & Economic Sociology section.

Found what you're looking for?

  • Start learning 29% faster today
  • 150,000+ documents available
  • Just £6.99 a month

or


Not the one? Search for your essay title...
  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

See related essaysSee related essays

Related University Degree Political & Economic Sociology essays

  1. The Social security system in Hong Kong. In the essay, we would concentrate ...

    Weakness of the scheme: As there is a huge income difference between Hong Kong and Guangdong, the cash assistance that they got which may seems very large. They would be very well off in Guangdong. It leads to an atmosphere of choosing to retire in China instead of Hong Kong among elderly.

  2. Asset Based Welfare and the Enabling State. This essay intends to examine the ...

    2007, p.185). While the UK has displayed the characteristics of a modernised enabling state, it has not dismantled its role in housing policy, but shifted responsibility onto the market and the citizen. Singapore's government has never felt the need to justify a shift in responsibility from state to the

  1. Nationalization in Britain

    private sector and allowed to continue with their useful work to the public (Foreman-Peck, 2004). The Labour Party document also recognized that there were big industries which were not yet ripe for public ownership but which required to be constructively supervised in order to meet the needs of the nation

  2. Discuss the main influences in the development of social policy before 1945 with reference ...

    But the Great War had ended all these plans despite that desire was strong and the national problem had once again affected the poor law. (M.A CROWTHER 1981, 92) All the expenditure was then spent on war. Eventually From 1913 onwards during the first world war, number of boards of

  1. What were the arguments of the New Right against the Welfare State(TM)? How were ...

    while "Beveridgian social policies were intended to contribute to the development of comprehensive welfare services, access to which would confer a sort of social citizenship." Alcock, C. Payne, S. and M. Sullivan, (2004:32). This shows how important development of capitalism was to the Keynesian welfare state at the time.

  2. Can and should public policy decisions be based solely on scientific evidence?

    could improve the consequence of global warming should also be given due credit alongside schemes such as the Pinatubo Option (Kintisc, 2010). A good example of a broader research program that could have substantial climate change benefits would be to grow beef in factories as each living cow emits around 50kg of methane yearly.

  1. Critically assess how refugees and asylum seekers are received in contemporary Britain

    This happened at Yarls wood detention centre in February 2010. It was reported they were locked in airless hallways and deprived of the right to use sanitary provisions and other necessities because they had refused to eat. (Afua Hirsch online, 2010).

  2. What have been the government and community responses to the rioting in Bradford, Burnley ...

    They were brought about by many factors ranging ultimately from "simple" language differences to religious and cultural differences. The riots in Bradford were seen as many as racially motivated. This resulted in the rise of far-right movements such as the BNP (British National Party)

  • Over 160,000 pieces
    of student written work
  • Annotated by
    experienced teachers
  • Ideas and feedback to
    improve your own work