National Health Services in the U.K.

National Health Services in the U.K.

In the United Kingdom, General Practitioner and nurse consultation in the primary level of care are free of charge to all, whether the patient is temporary or is a national health service patient (OGL, 2019). Ordinary residence describes the residence measure that is used by the U.K. to determine the right to free national health service healthcare. Foreigners or individuals who are not ordinary residents of England may have to pay for their care while some are exempted from paying for several services. China and the USA also have healthcare services that are distinct from the NHS system, but they all share the common goal of providing healthcare. The paper analyses the access, quality, and funding of the healthcare systems in the three countries.

Access

There are several services in the NHS which are free of charge regardless of the Person’s initial residence which are: emergency and accident services, diagnosis and treatment  for some communicable diseases such as HIV and Tuberculosis, and sexually transmitted infections, services provided for family planning exclusive of infertility or pregnancy treatment, treatments of any physical or mental condition that might be a result of violence or torture, services of palliative care and services that are included in the NHS111 telephone advice line.

Both American and British healthcare systems are damaged and spoilt, but at least the NHS is founded upon strong and firm principles of equality and compassion. It was based on the idea of providing world-class health care to everyone regardless of their origin or what amount of money they have.

Various groups of people are not charged for health services under the NHS. These groups of people are: Refugees who have already been granted asylum, humanitarian protection or short term protection under based on the immigration policies together with their dependents, people seeking for shelter, groups being supported from home office under Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 section 95, individuals whose asylum application was rejected, children who are supported by the local authority, victims of human trafficking or suspected victims of modern slavery together with their spouses and immigration detainees and prisoners, people receiving mandatory treatment under the court order and those who are prone to detention in an NHS hospital and are not given the freedom of movement for instance under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, there are no charges for all the treatment provided during the whole detention period.

Most healthcare tasks in the U.K. are carried out by community clinics where the British residents are registered. Patients are diagnosed, and appointments are made in a very logical manner. Chinese patients, on the other hand, choose to visit big hospitals irrespective of the severity of their illness, which is very inefficient. The enhancement of community clinics can, therefore, help to prevent a large number of patients from crowding in large hospitals. Chinese hospitals carry out diagnosis immediately after registration while the U.K., one has to book an appointment with the general practitioner in advance

Quality

Information standards used in the system for data collection, extraction, and storage have well-defined rules for processing information to ensure maximum security and confidentiality within the health and social care. Patients, commissioners, and health professionals enjoy some of the benefits of these standard information systems (NHS, 2019).

More security is guaranteed under the NHS system (NHS Foundation Trust, 2019). This is through the use of a standardized NHS number all over the health and social care system. A person’s health information is made available to the concerned healthcare provider, which ensures that the best care is given. There is freedom of choice because accurate information concerning the services in the social healthcare services and how they work is made available to the recipient, and they are, therefore, in a position to make their own health decisions. Integrated care and Interoperability are enhanced since standards of information allow a free and secure flow of information throughout the systems of health and social care.

Compared to the Chinese healthcare system, NHS puts great emphasis on the privacy of the patient. Looking at the U.S. healthcare system versus the U.K. system, NHS is less responsive to what its citizens need and wants to compare to the U.S. healthcare system according to a survey carried out by World Health Organization (Cesar, 2012).

The majority of people consider NHS as one of society’s most valued resources. Still, the order has been constantly subjected to a lot of pressure, be it social, economic, or political, all of which are connected. Some of the challenges facing the NHS system are: ageing population which means that there must be a drastic increase in the number of hospital beds, nurses, doctors and other staff members and equipment to meet the demand by the year 2022 (Medic portal, 2019), increased growing of diversification of healthcare needs for instance rose cases of diabetes and obesity or cases of antibiotic resistance.

Funding

The NHS system in the U.K. is funded mainly through general taxation and contributions from National insurance (Patel, 2018). Small charges are collected from patients, for instance, for prescriptions and dentistry. Rapidly growing population due to immigration disrupts the system, and there is a lack of reliable data on the immigrants (Helen, 2016). Advancement in medical technology the NHS an extra cost of approximately 10 billion Euros per annum.

Constant economic battles have been present in the NHS as the governments struggle to balance between securing the future of the system and being cost-efficient, for instance, the high cost of the lung and heart diseases (British Lung Foundation, 2019). Some of the ideas being suggested are shifting patient care from hospitals to clinics in the community and in the general practitioner surgeries which requires a lot of hospital income and might even lead them to more debts and centralizing service to redress funding issues which means closing down some locally provided services lie maternity and A&E units. The U.S. healthcare system is, however, financially unconstrained and very responsive to the need and wants of its citizens.

Meanwhile, significant health system reforms continue to take place in China, the main issue being primary care and efforts to control the number of drugs prescribes and the number of investigations to be carried out. The Chinese system, which is mostly privatized, also seems wasteful due to the prescription of too many drugs, blood tests, C.T. scans, among others. The government is making efforts to stop people from taking money out of the system, which is a disadvantage to many doctors and hospitals because they can no longer take as much money as they used to.