Development of Social Policy
The development of health care policy in the last one hundred years has been shaped by many factors. These factors are social, economic and political and include poverty, de-industrialisation and different political ideologies. Social attitudes changed over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and were the main driving force for the development of health care policies. In the early 1900's attitudes were changing and people were becoming more aware of social conditions within the country. The Boer War and the two World Wars had shown politicians that the country was poor, unfit and extremely unhealthy. Unemployment was rising and more and more people were becoming dependant on help from the state. At this time we had the political influence of a Liberal Government who's ideals described as social democratic, would give rise to the health service. Social democratic ideals concerning health care were that care should be available on a needs basis rather than for those who could afford it and should be provided by the state. They believed that all people should be free from poverty. The social democrats thought that it's people were the government's responsibility to look after. This ideolog
Voluntary agencies such as Age concern or W. The three factors are access to job market, cost of living (extras e. The market force includes having service providers and buyers. Poverty has far reaching effects on the health of the nation as was shown during the wars. In 1989 a white paper "Working for Patients" was introduced and changed the funding structure of the NHS. An example would be not having a television or not being able to go out and socialise. The liberal government in the early 1900's had set up the pathway for the welfare state incorporating their ideologies of free care for all and their vision of a poverty free nation. Health care is a very complicated issue to deal with as many other facets of life affects the health of our country such as poverty, demographics, the economy and politics. As more complicated therapies and equipment, such as scanners, are used these drive up costs. The idea was that this would improve care delivery tot the patients as hospitals that were poor would fall to the wayside and hospitals that delivered good care and services would flourish. Hospitals were allowed to become Trusts this meant it had opted out of the system and could now own its own assets and set its own pay and staff levels. The conservatives brought in market forces and gave birth to the mixed economy of care that exists today. Private medical insurance popped up everywhere and grew from 4% to 25% of the population in the space of a year. This costs the NHS more money in staff, drugs and equipment.
Common topics in this essay:
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Norwich Union,
Margaret Thatcher,
British Welfare,
National Insurance,
CARE POLICY,
Liberal Government,
World Wars,
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mixed economy care,
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