Healthcare in England
An overview of the NHS for those who are new to the UK health system.
Healthcare in England is provided predominately by England's
public health service, called the National Health Service (NHS).
The NHS provides healthcare to all permanent residents of the
United Kingdom and is free at the point of use and paid for through
general taxation.
Since its launch in 1948, the NHS has grown to become the
world's largest publicly funded health service.
The NHS in England is the biggest part of the system.
The NHS employs more than 1.7m people. Of those just under half
are clinically qualified, including 120,000 hospital doctors.
Structure:
The Department of Health controls the NHS. The secretary of
state for health is the head of the Department of Health and
reports to the prime minister. The Department of Health controls
England's 10 Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs), which oversee all
NHS activities in England. In turn, each SHA supervises all the NHS
trusts in its area. The devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales
and Northern Ireland run their local NHS services separately.
The NHS is divided into two sections: primary and secondary
care. Primary care is the first point of contact for most people
and is delivered by a wide range of independent contractors,
including
GPs.
Secondary care is known as acute healthcare and can be either
elective care or emergency care. Elective care means planned
specialist medical care or surgery, usually following referral from
a primary or community health professional such as a GP.
If you would like more information on how you can find a job
within any part of the English health system, call the Med Locum
team today on 0)207 7025 0098 or email them on
medlocumapplications@genevadoctors.co.uk.
Copyright and Source: NHS,
http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/overview.aspx