National Health Services Assignment 2022

Running head: HEALTHCARE
HEALTHCARE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

HEALTHCARE
1
Title: Should government be obliged to ensure that free, accessible healthcare is available to
all citizens, irrespective of age or health status? Discuss public healthcare provision in two
countries to support the answer.
All citizen of United Kingdom should be eligible to get equal healthcare treatment.
This essay thus summaries the current healthcare status of United Kingdom and United States
and the role of National Health Services (NHS) in improving the healthcare system. This
essay also focusses on a which state have free access to healthcare and how it is beneficial.
According to the Ec.europa.eu. (2019), it is observed that healthcare system is
improving in United Kingdom. It is reported that 70% of the population of United Kingdom
defines themselves to be in good health, thought 80% of them are from high society and 60%
from the lowest quintile. They are providing extensive public services free. Public sources are
providing 80%of the total health cost which equals to 18.4% of overall government spending.
Earlier, cancer and cardiovascular diseases were the main cause which leads to death, but
now Alzheimer’s disease is also found to be one of the main causes of increasing death rate
(Prince et al.,2016). Mostly it is seen that highly educated people are suffering from
hypertension and depression than poor people. It is also proven that all the healthcare systems
in the United Kingdom are providing great quality care (Grosios, Gahan & Burbidge, 2010).
On other side, according to US EPA (2019), life expectancy was found to be 78.8 years,
second highest after japan having 84.2 years. It is also found that the main causes of death in
United States as per reports of 2015 are heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory
diseases, stroke and also due to accidents. However, death due to cardiovascular diseases
were found to be the highest as per reports of 2016. However, in order to achieve good
quality care, performance targets have been used as an extensive tool.

HEALTHCARE
2
National Health Services (NHS) of the United Kingdom ensures that all the citizens
get access to equal treatments. Every citizen should get equal priority regarding treatment. In
order to achieve this NHS have introduced a practical resource which aims to reduce
inequalities in accessing general treatment. This resource aims to promote understanding of
several community groups who are experiencing inequalities and in addition help them in
overcoming these barriers and proving them with equal access in the healthcare system.
Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2017 opined that that the society have kept its
promise in diminishing inequalities with individuals having disability (Sakellariou &
Rotarou, 2017). Improvement have been provided to disable people regarding transportation
and healthcare and is developing a positive impact on the UK healthcare. Increased emphasis
on quality which represents patient safety, patient experience as well as an effective clinical
practice and in addition has supported innovation in early diagnosis and PPPM-enabling
technologies like telemedicine (Grosios, Gahan & Burbidge, 2013). However, in United
States healthcare is regulated by the department of health and human services (HHS). HHS is
the principle agency of the government of United States in order to protect the health of all
the Americans and fostering them with essential human services. its main objective is to
enhance health of all the Americans by serving them with best health and human services. in
addition to this HHS also supports sciences underlying medicine, public health as well as
social services. in order to provide quality care to the Americans, HHS also collaborates with
the federal government (Burwell, 2015).
One of the organisations that cares for patients’ need in United Kingdom is the
Patients’ Association. It is a registered charity in England and Wales. It is an independent
charity which believes that every community deserves to get equal access to the health care
system. They mainly focus on the improvements that can be achieved in health and social
care of patients or citizens. They also convey patients’ priorities and concerns to the