Healthcare in England

Overview

Healthcare in England is mainly provided by England's public health service, the National Health Service (England), that provides healthcare to all UK permanent residents that is free at the point of need and paid for from general taxation. Since 'Health' is a matter that has been devolved to the Parliaments and Assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, considerable differences are now developing between the public healthcare systems in the different countries of the United Kingdom. Though the public system dominates healthcare provision in England, private health care and a wide variety of alternative and complementary treatments are available for those willing to pay.

Public Healthcare

The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England. The NHS provides healthcare to anyone normally resident in the UK with most services free at the point of use for the patient though there are charges associated with eye tests, dental care, prescriptions, and many aspects of personal care.

The NHS provides the majority of healthcare in England, including primary care, in-patient care, long-term healthcare, ophthalmology and dentistry. The National Health Service Act 1946 came into effect on 5 July 1948. Private health care has continued parallel to the NHS, paid for largely by private insurance, but it is used by less than 8% of the population, and generally as a top-up to NHS services. Recently the private sector has been increasingly used to increase NHS capacity despite a large proportion of the public opposing such involvement according to one survey by the BMA.

The NHS is largely funded from general taxation (including a proportion from National Insurance payments). The UK government department responsible for the NHS is the Department of Health, headed by the Secretary of State for Health (Health Secretary), who sits in the British Cabinet. Most of the expenditure of The Department of Health (£98.6 billion in 2008-9) is spent on the NHS.

The NHS is the world's largest health service and the world's fourth-largest employer; only the Chinese People's Liberation Army, Indian Railways, and Wal-Mart employ more people directly.

Private-sector medical care

England has an active private sector in health care providing similar treatments to the public healthcare systems. Private health care is sometimes funded by employers through medical insurance as part of a benefits package to employees though it is mostly the larger companies that do. Insurers also market policies directly to the public.

The private sector is now doing subcontracting work for the NHS . Thus an NHS patient can be treated in the private sector as an NHS patient if the Health Services has subcontracted work to the hospital. This development is still in its infancy and quite rare.

Some private hospitals are business enterprises and some are non-profit-making trusts. Some hospital groups provide insurance plans (e.g. BUPA) and some insurance companies have deals with particular private hospital groups. Some private sector patients can be treated in NHS hospitals in which case the patient or his/her insurance company is billed.