Healthcare Flashcards
Was there consensus over healthcare during the interwar years?
+ Growing idea that the government should help out
+ Wanted government investment in medical advances etc
- Royal Commission on National Health wanted regional services instead
- Reports took place stating there should be regional services and healthcare
What did the Ministry of Health find in 1919?
- WWI highlighted the poor standard of health in the UK
- 40% of men were declared unfit for combat
- Established that they were going to co-ordinate healthcare
What was the Local Government Act 1929?
- Passed responsibility for Poor Law hospitals to local governments
- Gave local authorities responsibility for other areas of public health like child welfare, dentistry etc
- Various forms of hospital care was developed
- Healthcare improved - less of an infant mortality rate
What was healthcare like by 1939?
- Healthcare was improving
- Areas affected by extreme poverty still had high maternal mortality rates
- Ministry of Health was discussing plans for regional health boards centrally managed by the government
What was the impact of WWII on healthcare?
- Helped create a consensus on healthcare reform
- 1939 - National Emergency Healthcare System introduced to treat civilians and evacuated children
Who was Aneurin Bevan?
- Born into a mining family
- Became Minister for Health in Atlee’s Government
- Aimed to create a centrally run system, funded through taxes
- Provided free healthcare for all
What was the aim of the National Health Service Act 1946?
- Healthcare would be universal, available to all
- Healthcare would offer curative and preventive care, hospital care, GP surgeries, dental care etc
- Funded through taxation
- All hospitals were nationalised
Explain the opposition to the NHS, and how it was potentially countered (if applied)
British Medical Association
- Voted against NHS, as they’d now have to deal with all types of healthcare, as well as potentially having an effect on pay
- They were granted them a fee with each patient, and could have private patients
Conservatives
- Tories voted against the formation over 20 times before the act was passed
- Terms like ‘medical gestapo, medical furher’ were thrown at Bevan
- Believed it’d cause society to rely too much on the government, as well as cost them a vast amount of money
What improved in the 50s and 60s regarding healthcare?
- Britons could take advantage of new techniques, vaccinations and medicines
- First 10 years saw a massive decline in deaths from TB
- Mass immunisation programmes
- Received increased funding
- Increased life expectancy - higher than most countries at this time
What were the concerns of the rising costs regarding healthcare? 50s onwards
How were they dealt with? (if applied)
- Expected healthcare cost to fall after 1948 (wasn’t true)
- Thought people would get healthier (wasn’t true)
- Money spent increased dramatically
- Government were forced to introduce charges for glasses and dentures in 1951
- Bevan and his supporters resigned - always wanted totally free healthcare
- People became dependent on the NHS - went for every minor inconvenience
- Division of healthcare between hospital specialists
How did the NHS affect public health?
+ General improvement of health
+ Life expectancy increased
- Reports argued hospitals received too much of the NHS fund - not enough was going to GP surgeries eetc
How did healthcare affect health and class?
- Investment in working-class areas lagged behind
- Middle-class benefitted more
- Gap between classes were seen to grow in 50s and 60s - working-class women 2x more likely to die in childbirth
How did the NHS affect women?
+ Greater control over their fertility (contraceptive pill etc)
+ Massive increase in those giving birth in hospitals (safer etc)
+ Many more abortions were allowed and took place
- Medical staff could refuse to participate in abortions - thus many done in a private sector
What was the impact of the NHS on mental health?
+ 1959 Mental Health Act - Decisions made to force treatment on people were now done by professions rather than judges in court - Introduced an open door policy so that most patients could attend voluntary treatment
- Concern by top of government that NHS wasn’t treating mental illnesses effectively
- Massive decrease in hospital beds given for those with a mental illness in 70s
