Healthcare System and Sustainable Development Goals in the United Kingdom

This article discusses the healthcare system and sustainable development goals in the United Kingdom. It covers the main health issues, the health system in the country, progress towards SDGs, and more. The main health issues discussed include communicable and non-communicable diseases, and road accidents. The article also describes the UK's healthcare system and its progress towards achieving SDGs, with a focus on gender equality. Finally, the article advocates for improving the healthcare system and taking preventive actions to tackle health issues.

Global Public Health

Table of Contents
SECTION A - Introduction.............................................................................................................3
SECTION B – The main health issue..............................................................................................3
SECTION C - Description of health system in country..................................................................6
SECTION D - Assessing progress country has made in reaching named Sustainable
Development Goal (SDGs)..............................................................................................................8
SECTION E - Advocacy statement...............................................................................................10
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

SECTION A - Introduction
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is commonly called as United
Kingdom or Britain. The country’s current population is 68,482,480 as per worldometer (U.K.
Population (Live), 2022). The WHO region in respect to United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland include England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. The life expectancy of
the people of UK are longer. The life expectancy of women is higher than men i.e. 80.5 years
and 75.8 years. At 2030 about 1 of 5 people in UK will be of age of 65 or more (United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 2022). In 2017, the maternal mortality ratio for
UK was 7 deaths per 100000 live birth (United Kingdom - Maternal mortality ratio, 2022). The
rate of GDP in UK in 2021 was 6.76% which falls in 2022 and become 5.01%. Likewise, the
health challenges which are present in the UK include the exposure towards alcohol, air
pollution, mental health, obesity issues and various other (Health matters: public health issues,
2022). This may have a direct impact towards the life and wellbeing of individual and people.
Likewise, the people of UK face the health challenges and related issues in relation with the
exposure to bad lifestyle and the exposure towards the bad habits that may include the
consumption of unhealthy food, alcohol as well as smoking habits.
SECTION B – The main health issue
The UK face various health issues that may have a direct impact towards the mortality rate as
well as other aspect of the UK Health system. The major health issues would include:
Communicable disease:
This majorly include the infectious diseases. In case of UK the main and highly impactful
communicable disease would include the Tuberculosis. The vulnerable group of people of UK
who lives in poverty and are marginalised and economically or socially excluded are more
suffered and affected from tuberculosis. The mortality rate that is associated with the
Tuberculosis in UK in 2008-12 shows that 941 males died with TB while the 670 females died as
a result of respirator TB.

Figure 1Respiratory TB mortality ratios by UK regions, males and females, 2008–12
Source: Respiratory tuberculosis (TB) statistics, 2022
From the above graph it is also clear that the TB mortality rate in London is highest
followed by the West Midland and East Midlands. The graph also shows that the rate of TB is
high in case of urban areas like London, Glasgow and Birmingham. In case of Scotland the TB
mortality rate is highest.
The risk factor that is related with the spreading of TB include the close contact with
person infected from TB. Immigration from other places of the world has also raised the TB in
London.
In order to deal with the TB the Government and NHS have taken various steps that may
include the providing of BCG vaccine for adult age under 35 and are at the risk of TB
(Overview, 2022). Irrespective of age the vaccination is also availed among any age people in
UK who have chances of TB.
Non-communicable disease
In case of non-communicable disease, the prevalence of coronary heart disease and stroke
is highly prevalent. The social group which is most affected with the concerned disease is South

Asian people who live in UK. likewise, the South Asian lives in Scotland have 60-70% higher
incidence of heart attack (Ethnicity and coronary heart disease: making sense of risk and
improving care, 2022). With the aspect of CHD around 64000 people died every year which
means 175 people each day. Likewise, 1 in 8 men and 1 in 15 women die from coronary heart
diseases (UK Factsheet, 2022).
Figure 2Death Rate from CVD
Source: UK Factsheet, 2022
From the above graph it can be analysed that death rate of men is more in comparison of
females. Likewise, with the with the overall death that is caused with CVD is also high.
The risk factor that lead to the prevalence of CHD include increase tobacco consumption,
low physical activity, decrease consumption of fruits and vegetables, high stress and other
psychosocial risk.
In order to tackle the health issue of CVD the Government of UK and NHS England has
taken various steps that may include the setting up of salt, sugar as well as calorie reduction

target. Likewise, the UK Government implement the National Service Framework for Coronary
Heart Disease for tackling the heart diseases (Coronary Heart Disease, 2022).
Road accidents
This is also a common issue that may occur in the UK. The social group of young age i.e.
under 17 years are majorly affected by the road accidents. This may also include the adults who
under the influence of drinking and consumption of drugs affected with the road accidents. In
2020 around 1516 people were killed in road accident with a recording of 1460 death in Britain
and 56 in Northern Ireland (UK ROAD DEATH AND CASUALTY STATISTICS, 2022). Early
aggressive behaviour, undiagnosed mental health issues, drug availability and various other lead
to the occurrence of road accident.
The Government and the WHO are considered as major bodies that play an important
role in relation with the road accident. Road Safety Action Plan is the major step and approach
taken by UK Government towards the dealing of road accidents in UK.
SECTION C - Description of health system in country
a) Health system is organized at various levels of care and delivers Universal Health coverage to
the country’s population at large scale. UK provides public healthcare to all permanent residents
about 58 million people. The healthcare system of UK is government sponsored Universal
healthcare system (Atkinson and et.al., 2020). There are also state funded healthcare systems
which are analysed for taking concern as to how effectively and in appropriate manner the carers
and professionals are concerned about the health care system of UK. Universal health coverage
denotes that all individuals have access to healthcare services when and where they need them
which do not concern the financial hardship.
To attain Universal healthcare, there are three strategic aspects which are persuaded
which are named as financial risk protection in benefit of National Health Insurance Program
(NHIP), there is access to health care facilities and quality hospitals, there is also attainment of
health-related millennium (McGlinchey and et.al., 2019). These are the three coverages under
Universal Health Care system. Apart from this, the healthcare of UK is publicly funded which is
paid for taxation. UK has private healthcare sector which is acquired by the private healthcare
insurance. This is how the healthcare system of UK is covered to the country’s population.

b) The healthcare system in UK described six core WHO building blocks which are service
delivery, health workforce, health information systems, access to essential medicines, financing
and government and leadership. All the six components help in strengthening health systems in
different ways. Among this, service delivery is the major aspect which is concerned in analysing
the health care services provided to the patients and the service takers (Olah, Satyanarayan and
et.al., 2018). Service delivery helps in understanding the services of healthcare which is provided
to the patients in UK. There is also improvement in the efficiency of the healthcare services
which is provided to the patients.
Current initiative by the government or other international organization to support
improved outcomes relating to addressing the issues identified around the indicator are described
in detail manner. The current initiative is that the government is planning to build more hospitals
within UK so that more healthcare services are provided to the patients in need and that they are
more concerned about how effectively and in appropriate manner the patients are in care
services. The services also include the patients’ living conditions which are of use and are
provided under the circumstances as to how the facilities are provided to the service users or the
patients for their welfare and the country is working towards providing all the benefits as to what
can be the best of the services provided to the patients at large scale (Huang, Huang and et.al.,
2020). When there will be more hospitals build, as decided by the government of UK, the
patients will be able incur the facilities and services which they are in need of and this way the
government will take concern of the health benefits to be provided to the patients. Therefore,
government of UK is focusing on increasing awareness of how the healthcare services can be
more preferred by the patients easily and is accessible.

SECTION D - Assessing progress country has made in reaching named
Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs)
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) helps in assessing the country’s performance through the
goals which are being set and this helps in creating value for the aspects of health and social
care. The country has made progress For the SDG5 – Gender Equality which helps in addressing
the aspects as to how effectively the gender equality factor is being considered for the overall
country development and growth (Kitadai and Maruyama, 2018). The current Sustainable
Development Goal is defined as how UK is taking concern of the aspects of growth and
development in the country. The UK has been working towards the aspects of growth and
development for the gender equality which helps in denoting the aspect that the country is
empowering its women and girls for the global commitments to achieve UN’s Sustainable
Development Goals by 2030. The country is focusing in improving the gender equality aspect
and this helps in addressing all major changes which are required by the country.
Since development of this goal in 2015, the country has initiated this goal in the manner
which helps in addressing the aspects as to how the country earlier was facing the gender
inequality issues and problems (Sachs, Schmidt-Traub and et.al., 2019). UK has been working on
the aspects of growth and development and improvement in the current status as to how
effectively and in efficient manner the status has been improved till date. UK has strengthened
the sound policies and enforceable legislations for the promotion of gender equality and to
maintain the balance between the aspects of empowerment and equality to the women and girls

in UK. In 2016, the rights for women were being addressed to get the education and various
other aspects.
The major concern in the SDG 5 is that to stop the violence of women and the girls and
eliminate forced marriages and genital mutilation. The target 5.2 eliminates all forms of violence
against women and girls in the public and private spheres which includes all types of exploitation
with women. This is the major concern for UK which was being addressed to which the
improvements have taken place and this has helped in knowing that how effectively the changes
are being taken place at large scale through the years since 2015 (Fonseca, Domingues and et.al.,
2020). There is higher level of percentage of women who are aged 20 – 24 in the country. Target
5.3 eliminates all harmful practices such as early and forced marriage and female genital
mutilations. UK has now been growing and developing the standards of women and providing
them safety by eliminating the aspects as to how effectively the changes are being taken place
and the situations of women and girls have been improved. Therefore, there are major changes
which are being considered in following of certain rules and regulations for the SDG 5.

SECTION E - Advocacy statement
It is very important that the health and social care system is improved at large scale and this
helps in addressing the aspects of growth and development to which there will also be stable
sustainability within the system of healthcare. There should be actions taken for improving the
health of the country such that the country is able to provide the health care services in the most
effective and efficient way possible. There are certain issues which have been addressed in the
case study and these are – communicable disease which is tuberculosis, non-communicable
disease coronary heart disease and stroke (Fuso Nerini, Sovacool, Hughes and et.al., 2019).
Along with this there is also major disease which is being addressed as road accidents taking
place. These are some of the major issues which the country UK is facing and this is denoted by
how the population of UK is being affected at large scale. These health issues should be tackled
by the government so that there is minimum and no spread of such harmful diseases. For this,
preventive actions and care should be taken into consideration and rules should be regulated by
the government so that the country does not face any issues and problems regarding the health
and proper medication and health care services and facilities are provided to the patients.
The SDG goal noted in the case study is the gender equality goal which denoted the position
of UK. Theis goal helped in establishing the perspectives as to how the SDG 5 goal was being
taken into concern and improved the position of women and girls in UK (Baxter, Johnson and
et.al., 2018).

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Atkinson, P. and et.al., 2020. Understanding the policy dynamics of COVID-19 in the UK: Early
findings from interviews with policy makers and health care
professionals. Social Science & Medicine. 266. p.113423.
Baxter, S., Johnson, M. and et.al., 2018. The effects of integrated care: a systematic review of
UK and international evidence. BMC health services research. 18(1).
pp.1-13.
Fonseca, L.M., Domingues, J.P. and et.al., 2020. Mapping the sustainable development goals
relationships. Sustainability. 12(8). p.3359.
Fuso Nerini, F., Sovacool, B., Hughes, N. and et.al., 2019. Connecting climate action with other
Sustainable Development Goals. Nature Sustainability. 2(8). pp.674-680.
Huang, T.Y., Huang, H.W. and et.al., 2020. Four-dimensional micro-building blocks. Science
advances. 6(3). p.eaav8219.
Kitadai, N. and Maruyama, S., 2018. Origins of building blocks of life: A review. Geoscience
Frontiers. 9(4). pp.1117-1153.
McGlinchey, T. and et.al., 2019. Serious illness care Programme UK: assessing the ‘face
validity’, applicability and relevance of the serious illness conversation
guide for use within the UK health care setting. BMC Health Services
Research. 19(1). pp.1-9.
Olah, C., Satyanarayan, A. and et.al., 2018. The building blocks of interpretability. Distill. 3(3).
p.e10.
Sachs, J.D., Schmidt-Traub, G. and et.al., 2019. Six transformations to achieve the sustainable
development goals. Nature sustainability. 2(9). pp.805-814.
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