HARRY COOK reflects on how the National Health Service has evolved and draws attention to its merits.
The scope of this new health programme embraced hospital services, family doctors, dentists, opticians and pharmacists, together with local authority community health services such as the local health clinics. Although the original, laudable aim was for the service to be entirely free of charge, financial problems soon appeared and by 1952 charges were having to be levied for prescriptions (five pence each in today's money) and a flat rate of £1 for dental treatment.
Financial considerations continued to dog the smooth running of the NHS throughout the succeeding years, and eventually, in the period 1990–1992, a Conservative Government sought to introduce a form of internal market as a means of bringing a measure of financial probity to NHS budgeting. In essence, there would be a system of providers of healthcare (e.g. hospitals) and purchasers (e.g. local health authorities and some GP practices) who would manage their own budgets.
In 1998, a Labour Government modified this approach to NHS financing and, more significantly, markedly increased central Government spending in succeeding years. Currently, the NHS receives its funding mainly from general taxation (74%) and national insurance contributions (20%). The estimated 2005 budget for the NHS ran to £76 billion, which is serious money in anyone's terms.
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