SOCIAL AND HEALTH CARE SERVICES

Social and Health Care Services



Social and Health Care Services

Introduction

From its inception to our days, and everywhere where the market is a dominating force, Western type social policy has been torn by basic conflict. This paper outlines the impact of UK health care and social policy reforms on the quality of healthcare provision. Originally, the health care system catered for those in state employment. In addition, key industries had health services of their own. Not until 1972 were peasant farmers encompassed within the system (Wills, 2008, 521). Like the UK National Health Service (NHS), the system was centrally funded and formally free at the point of delivery. Unlike the NHS, much of the planning and coordination of the health service was performed at the level of the state, on the basis of detailed information provided by fourteen National Research Institutes. Primary care was not provided by family doctors as in the NHS. But, from 1975 onwards a system of integrated health care complexes existed; which integrated inpatient and outpatient care, was hospital-centred, and relied heavily on specialists (Ferge, 1979, 52).

1.1 Key Elements of Health and Social Care Service Provision in UK

Changes to the Polish health care system had been made soon after the ending of communism. The 1991 Health Care Institutions Act allowed for the existence of diverse owners beyond the Ministry of Health (Bevan, 2008, 89). These included regional and local government, other ministries, private bodies, and non-governmental organizations. It provided the legal basis for publicly owned hospitals in UK to become substantially autonomous and responsible for managing their own budgets. But while primary health care was quick to privatize, for political and economic reasons hospitals were not The deduction was originally set at 7.5 per cent of taxable income; between 2003 and 2007 this increased annually by one quarter per cent until it reached its present level of 9 per cent (King & Peterson, 2007, 58).

At 7.5 per cent of taxable income the initial health insurance premium was clearly inadequate for the maintenance of pre-existing levels of care. Revenue was also depleted by the fact that one fifth of the working population was unemployed at the time. In a recent interview discussing current reforms, a former minister of health went so far as to suggest that the 1999 reforms had been consciously designed to bring about the privatization of hospitals (Wills & Douglas, 2004, 432).

In 1998, a few people met in the office decided that the health care system in UK would be privatised. This was to be done by reducing health care expenditure as a proportion of GDP and at the same time by introducing an inadequate system of sickness funds. Within year health expenditure as a percentage of GDP had fallen from over 4.5 percent to less than four. That was one of the lowest indices in Europe.

1.2 Factors That Are Potential Barriers to Health and Social Care Learning Outcome

Much of the research on barriers to care has focused on entry to ...