The essay will start by looking at the brief history, before and after the creation of NHS in 1948. A white paper “Choosing Health: making healthier choices easier” (DOH 2004) in its entirety will be used to critically analyse health policies that have direct relevance upon current practices. National Service Framework (NSF) which provides national standards to reduce variations in care (Dimond, 2008) will be used to measure the standard and expected targets sets by the white paper. The report will also look at the appliance of the principles of integrated governance which is used by NHS to measure the quality of services and high standards of health care provision. The report will conclusively analyze the white paper in relation to the changing emphasis in risk management, from a person-centred to a system-approach.
Prior to the formation of NHS in 1948, healthcare was regarded as a luxury that could be afforded by few people. Although charges were introduced at some point, but did little to rescue the growing health needs (Rees 2001) The unmet Public health demands have always been the main concern of the ruling governments, which was the drive behind the formation of NHS in 1948. The NHS was born out of desire to establish a free health care that would be available to all at the point of delivery and funded purely by taxpayers (Digby 1999) This concept has been widely commended, however, the NHS has become a victim of its own success due to the huge healthcare demands that regularly outweighs the available resources. The statement from Aneurin Bevan “We shall never have all we need” (Bevan, 1958 cited in Tippett, 2004, p.111) signifies that expectations would always exceed capacity and for this reason, NHS will continue to introduce guidelines, new commissions and guidance to meet the 21st century demands.
Outcome 1
A health policy offers a framework to evaluate performance, and help to bring together
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