Citizenship, Community and Welfare: An Overview of the Healthcare System in UK

LC 564 Citizenship Community
and Welfare

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Overview of the healthcare system in UK ..................................................................................3
Theory of modernity and impact on the welfare state.................................................................4
Contemporary citizenship............................................................................................................5
Critical evaluation of theories of risk, vulnerability and resilience............................................7
Understanding of the disciplinary functions of the welfare state as an agent of social
surveillance .................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Having a sense of community embraces spirit , character and image these are the major
elements of the healthy community. The development of the community is important to
understand and it is also important in order to support the citizen welfare and its development.
The purpose is to build a community which includes all the people belonging to different
cultures and traditions. The present report is based on the Citizenship, community and welfare
and the chosen topic is health care(Banks, and Hart, 2018). The United Kingdom provides
public health care to all the permanent residents that is about 58 million people. It has been
observed that 8.4% of the Gross domestic product is spent on healthcare in UK .Furthermore,
UK has also planned to build their own private healthcare centre.
Heath care refers to maintenance and improvement in the health that is through
prevention , treatment and cure of the disease by the healthcare institutions. National health
service (NHS) is one of the public healthcare sector in UK that was founded in 1946.In the
ancient times healthcare facilities was only provided to people with high income class. But in
the current trends all the citizens of UK are entitled to get medical treatment under this system.
The mission of the essay is to highlight the evolution of the healthcare sectors and the issues that
were present in the past and changes that have taken place(Ghafur, and et.al., 2019). The current
report also highlights the various theories that can be applied to the health care system in UK and
various disciplinary function of the welfare state which acts as an agent of social surveillance.
MAIN BODY
Overview of the healthcare system in UK
The United Kingdom has a universal healthcare system that is known as National
Healthcare system(NHS). The institution was founded in 1946 and was enacted in 1948. The
health care system is established with the principles of universality , free delivery of the
services , equity and central funding .All the provisions of the NHS is accordance with the UK
health care system. In the ancient time national insurance was introduces and under this the
system is provided with the medical coverage to employed person through payroll
deductions(Brenman, 2021). It has been observed that NHS in one of the largest public health
system in the world and serves on an average of 1 million people and have efficient standard

care. In addition to this, the institution has to follow various safety regulations and laws in order
to maintain peace and also provide medical facilities to every person of the country.
It has ben observed that in 1990 the UK government put more focus on improvement of
the and made on of the major changes in the NHS by creating the internal market. These markets
were independent organisation that were managed by the and competed with each
other(Greenberg, and et.al., 2020) . Furthermore, in 1998 UK government introduced the NHS
plan which assist in the development of the NHS. But in the present time the healthcare system
was operating with the provisions of the 1998 guidelines but on the other hand it lacks various
characteristics such as national standards, it lacked incentives and various means to improve the
performance(Maniatopoulos, and et.al., 2020). It has been observed that the health care system of
UK has undergone major reforms over a period. The NHS has undergone changes like changes
in the management structure of the government and financial model of the organisation.
In addition to this Brexit also has immense impact on the health care system of UK.
From the data collected it was observed that more than 5,000 nurses from the U countries left
the NHS from 2017-2019 but the current situation predicts that there has been increase in the
number of nurses that are coming from outside the EU to work in UK. The other major
challenges faced by NHS was the shortage of the medicines although , the organisation has the
stock of the medicines but it was all used during the coronavirus(Thorlby, and Arora, 2018).
Various members of Pharmaceutical company suggested that maintaining the stock of the
medicines can be an issue during the post transition period but importing the medicines from
other countries is the major issue that is faced by the country in 2021.
Theory of modernity and impact on the welfare state
Furthermore, the health insurance care system is governed and guided by NHS with the
purpose of publicly funding the various health care companies . From the research it was
predicted that government funding covers 85% of the healthcare expenditure in UK. According
to the modernity theory refers to the process of modernisation within the societies and states that
the traditional societies. Furthermore, it is the process of evolution of the society that results into
development of the community as well(Domingues, 2020). It also states the development of the
society and its economic growth. The current healthcare system in UK has undergone various
changes in the past decades. It is a government sponsored universal health care system that was
called National health services and consist of publicly funded healthcare system in UK(Strunz,