Assessing Sociological Explanations for Health Inequalities in the UK

Running head: HEALTHCARE
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Essay title: Assess sociological explanations for differences in health chances and health and
social care provision.
Introduction
The inequalities in the health are some of the unavoidable and unjust factors of the
people’s differences in health across the population and among specific group of population. The
inequalities of health go against the principles related to social justice since they tend to be
unavoidable (Marmot 2015). Health inequalities are socially is determined by the circumstances
that are largely beyond any of the individual's control. In the context of the growing rate of the
health inequalities, NHS was developed on the aim that the good health care needs to be
available to all the population regardless of the social class and other societal factors. The
publicly funded health care system for England, the NHS is committed towards the provision of
improvement of the environments of the staffs and the patients. The organization targets to
provides benefits for the welfare of the staff and the patients with the inclusion of the health
education and support to the staff members by training. The essay aims to highlight the
inequalities in health within the domain of age and gender in the United Kingdom.
Main Body
The National health system of England was developed on July 5 in the year 1948. Before
the development of the NHS, there was a thoroughly unequal system regarding the healthcare
that was given to the patients. There were municipal and voluntary hospitals which were run by
the local authorities backing up with the historic inadequate law legislation. According to
Douglas et al. (2016), the era before the development of the NHS showed extreme inequalities
regarding access to health care services. Treatments were performed by the nurses and the

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doctors who were limitedly trained with the non-sufficient amount of resources. In the context of
health inequality, the existence of the poor law and the legislation back then offered some of the
financial aid to the poorest of the families. There laid a wide gap among the health care facilities
for as per the social class since equitable health care facilities were provided to those who
offered money for the assistance.
For combating to the inequality in the health care services within the UK, the government
of the country initiated in the development of the national organization, NHS in the year 1948.
The organization offered the opportunity towards the healthy living of the people by the
reduction in the inequalities in health (Balicer et al. 2015). The organization provided the health
care services as per being accountable towards the communities, the public and the patients that
it serves. The birth of NHS remarked the history towards the provision of the universal and the
free benefits towards all the individuals in need. Funded by the taxes, the national governing
organization was useful for providing the citizens of the UK towards their needs regarding
healthcare rather than their capability towards payment (Arcaya et al. 2015). The general
summary of the effects of the formation of NHS include their responsibilities towards the
citizens of UK, which are the active development of the plans of the healthcare for the
improvement of the health-related services, making sure that the local health services are of high
quality and the effective integration of the national priorities like the improvement of the services
related to cancer within the local health service plans.
This essay will highlight two of the most major health care inequalities in the UK. These
are the inequalities in terms of Age and Gender. The distribution of health is being determined
by various of the variety of the community, the individual and the social factors.

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Figure -
Source - GOV.UK. (2019)
As per the above figure, there has been a growing body of the shreds of evidence that
documents the full range of the inequalities within the distribution of the health and the health-
related outcomes. According to the researches, there have been various levels of the documented
disparities by the social class, gender and some of the other factors like ethnicity.
According to Lynch (2017), the outcomes of the health generally worsened with the
wider range of the socio-economic disadvantages. With the introduction by the government of
Britain towards the questions regarding occupation and the age in the case of the decennial
census, there has been a wide range of the disparity regarding the examination of the individuals
and their health outcomes in respect to their age and the social class.