Social Factors and Ideology Behind Publicly Funded Healthcare

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Social factors and underlying changes in ideology which created the demand for publicly
funded healthcare
Before 19th century, Poor Law was first passed by Queen Elizabeth and it is regarded as
the first legal attempt to improve the overall conditions for destitute. However, this Poor Law
only attempted to health poor people, but the overall ideology was vague as the law failed to
analyse the reasons behind the generation of poverty or poor health and well-being (Leonard
2013). The work done by Elizabeth Fry, Thomas Chalmers and Octavia Hill during 1800 tried to
establish the reason behind poverty. The main reasons behind poverty and poor well-being that
was highlighted include poor or dilapidated or over-crowed housing and poor sanitary condition
of the houses. The poor well-being while residing under this deprived set-up also accounted for
the high rate of mortality and morbidity among the poor and this accounted to outbreak of
epidemic, killing 1000s of people (1831 to 1838) (Ashton and Young 2013). The work
undertaken by Edwin Chadwick Royal Commission during mind-1830s further stated that poor
sanitization is irrevocably linked with high rate of mortality among poor. His works directly
influenced amendment in 1834 Poor Law and led to the establishment of the 1848 Public Health
Act. Public Health Act (1848) aimed towards improving hygiene and public sanitation (Davies et
al. 2014). Public Health Act (1848 to 1875) consolidated a number of prior acts and helped to
establish clean water supplies, sanitation and reduction of diseases. In order to execute 1875 Act
Local Authorities were appointed to oversee public health (Davies et al. 2014). The
establishment of the Public Health Act (1875) from the perspective of social reformer bought
change in the ideology of the health reform system. Moreover, during mid1800 the first Liberal
government came to power which eradicated the conservatives’ power in the United Kingdom.
Again during the advent of the 20th century Labour movement started which attracted the

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working class leading to change in the overall view-point of the society (Ashton and Young
2013).
Hospitals were started during later 1800s but were mainly voluntary hospitals and mainly
looked after the poor when they fell ill. Majority of this morphed into teaching hospitals or
cottage hospitals assisted by visiting consultant and general practitioners. There were no
facilities to coverage the health requirements of the mass. With this growing need, National
Insurance Act was establishment in 1911. This act laid to the foundation of the publicly funded
healthcare system (Grimes 2016).
Factors which led to the creation of the National Health Service as part of the Welfare
State
During 1919 Lord Addison, the first British Minister of Health, commissioned Lord
Dawson in order to produce a report on the schemes which are requisite for the systematized
provision of health and medical services under the opinion of the Council. This idea outlined the
plan of the establishment of network of the primary and secondary health centres. This idea was
taken a step a further in the Labour Party Conference in the 1934 and this led to the official
documentation of the NHS. Before the onset of the Second World War there was a consensus
which operated hospitals locally and voluntarily (Scott et al. 2018). This healthcare system was
gradually integrated to the nationally run healthcare service. The care offered by the healthcare
professionals were then included under the daily wages. During 1941 and 1944, numerous
reports for healthcare service to deliver free healthcare population were extracted gradually.
During 1944, Aneurin Bevan drew conclusion that previous plans for integrating voluntary and
local hospitals under local level funding were flawed and un-workable (Dixon-Woods et al.