The Health and Social Care Act 2012: Provisions and Impact

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 in the UK. It begins by introducing the context of health and social care in the UK, highlighting the role of the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS. The main body of the essay delves into the specific provisions of the Act, including the restructuring of the NHS, the roles of various bodies, and the establishment of clinical commissioning groups. It discusses the act's aim to improve care quality and patient expectations. The essay then explores the experiences and criticisms associated with the Act, including debates over its effectiveness, impact on general practices, and the impact on the NHS. It examines the reforms made to the NHS, including changes to the powers of local governments and the focus on competition and innovation. The essay concludes by summarizing the key points and providing a critical evaluation of the Act's success, acknowledging both its achievements and the criticisms it faced. The essay emphasizes the Act's impact on the health and social care landscape in England and its lasting effects on the delivery of healthcare services.

Health and social care
management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Health and social care basically is the department of government in United Kingdom that is
UK in which the government of the UK majorly is responsible for or all the health and social
care of the adult related policies in England. This is the department which oversees the NHS that
is the National Health Services in England. This department of the health and social care help in
the development of all the policies and the guidelines that help for the in improving the care in
terms of its quality and expectations of the patients (Russell, Beckmeyer and Su-Russell, 2018).
Health and social care mainly is the treatment which is provided in the hospital for ill health or
for any kind of medical conditions. The activities of the NHS are regulated by the health and
social care act of 2012 in UK.
The aim of this essay is to understand all the major provisions of the act of 2012 that relates
to the health and social care in UK. This essay also aims at understanding the experience and
criticism of the act of 2012 after its implementation by the UK Government.
MAIN BODY
The act of 2012 that is of the health and social care received Royal assent in 2012 on March
27th. Initially the bill for the said act was introduced in the parliament in 2011 on January 19th.
This set at initially when was discussed in the parliament was considered to be very controversial
as there were lots of arguments and opposite expressed upon the said will from many of the
organisations professional but still at made its way through the process of legislation due to the
restructuring of the NHS as whole and reworking of it.
Irrespective of all the political views which were made by the various observers, it must be
agreed that the health and social care act of 2012 despite a very long and winding road has made
significant stride in reinventing the landscape that relates to the Healthcare (Farrag and Harris,
2021). This said act have 309 section and it also includes 23 schedule. All the sections and
schedules mentioned under the act affects the system of NHS entirely. In the Parliament Devil's
continuous debate and arguments over the effectiveness and the feasibility of the provisions that
are currently governing the activities and functions of NHS. The provisions of the said act are
too many which is practically impossible to be therefore a short account of all the provisions are
explained further.

This act initially aims at establishing the secretary of state, monitors and other various
bodies with different types of responsibilities in the new plan made for the NHS by the act. The
degree to which all the responsibilities can be readily reconcile is an argument of a moot which
needed a critical analysis and discussion. In addition to this there seems to be an unavoidable
conflict inside the extending remitted by the monitors in regulation of the price and also the
performances while maintaining and improving the quality of the output. Primary care trust that
is PCT and strategic health authority that is SHA, both of these phased out by the introduction of
the act of 2012 (Herron and Skinner, 2018). Instead of both these the act created a clinical
commissioning committee that will help in providing and serving the National Network of the
Commissioner which will be reporting to the NHS commissioning board. Some people also
made an argument that the current act it basically is the reinvention of the old PCT, SHA and
combination of various other act and regulations which were phased out.
The act provide with various number of duties to the board which includes encouragement
of creativity and the treatment which is a high quality, reducing the disparities and also the
promotion of the preferences of each and every individual. Here, there could may be a conflict
with the various responsibilities and it seems to have been demonstrating conformity with all
those responsibilities would be e very difficult. The foundation trust status would be granted to
the trust of NHS which will also provide for more financial independence in the delivering of the
Healthcare and also the advancement of the health of public. Also the provisions which were
failed were set out.
The role of the monitors have also been broadened so as to include the promotion of safe,
cost effective and a very reliable program that is related to health care. This is mainly responsible
for the continues to of all the regulations, licences and various different tariffs for both the
private suppliers and the NHS and it has a constructive obligation to eradicate all the practices
which are anti-competitive in nature (Field and Brown, 2019). There are several different kinds
of provision in place so as to make sure that the providers of it cannot just discriminately pics out
the most advantages or customers and facilities that are beneficial or providing any kind of
benefit to the NHS. The provisions are such that there exist no inequality in any kind of function
and activities taking place in NHS. All the provisions make sure that their exit fair pricing and
consistency. The commission of the care quality and Monitor would both collaborate so that we

can help the government in achievements of the objective that relates to the Heath and system of
the social care in the whole of the England. There are various local health watch organisations
that make their reporting to the Monitor, State secretary and to the other various health agencies
that are aimed at enhancing and improving the patient’s representation. The legislation's scope is
authoritarian. Despite the Act's length, it seems that there are already various types of
unanswered concerns about how it will function or carry out the responsibilities that are
mentioned in the act (Harris and Mayo, 2018). In this moment of economic meltdown, where
Trusts are unable to make any kind of financial gains and also the clinical and confidence of
nursing seems to be at a very low point, it is fair to assume that the costs of whole of the
reorganizing of the NHS would be considered very important.
After the act of 2012 of the health and social care came into force there were many criticism
made relating to the said act. With the enforcement of this act many parts of the NHS were
affected either directly or indirectly. The act made several changes and reforms in the initial
activities of the NHL. The impact of all these changes and Reforms were very significant on the
general practice and its role of the public health. The major changes were made which increased
the potential need of both GP's for the knowledge of Public Health and its practices which needs
to be increased.
When talking about the powers which were given to the clinicians, the general practitioners
have been given or have been allotted with a fixed commissioning budget under this act (Leu,
Frech and Jung, 2018). This is done to make sure that all the facilities are being provided by the
people who have clinical experience, instead of providing facilities to those people who majorly
intent or expertise in the business and Management as it was the case before.
The act also made changes in the flexibility of the Municipal government. When there is
very less intervention or interference of the government it allows powers to be distributed
equally among all the authorities and localised and restrict the centralisation of those powers.
With this they were increasing the local government power and less powers were given to the
national government in this regard. For this very purpose there were new statutory bodies which
were formed and those basically comprises of all the local representatives with were elected. The

local communities come with their specific needs of their own and therefore localising it instead
of nationalizing it will helps in meeting the needs of the people in a much better way.
The act also focused upon the competition and innovation. The act established a new
statutory body under the name of monitor which helps in dealing with all kinds of anti-
competitive activities that takes place in health and social care field. It helps in monitoring the
mergers of the companies which may be anti-competitive or may also limit the competition in
the market (Schmutz and Eppich, 2017). This statutory body helps in keeping watch over such
measures so as to promote the competition and market. There has been lots of competition seen
in this industry even though the government laid out several implications of such anti-
competition. This can be eliminated by the government if more strict actions are taken and heavy
penalties are imposed upon the one dominating.
Along with many of the benefits and experiences which people had after the implementation
of the act of 2012 of the health and social care there were many criticism made. After the
enforcement of the act many of the companies who were solely under the health and social care
department for earning profit faced a lot of problems. The merger of the two big companies who
was only working for earning of the profit from the health and social care was rejected by the
monitor. This was majorly done due to the fact that the Act was initiated so that there can be
reduction in the competition and equal and fair chances were provided to all the providers of the
health and social care. The criticism was also made by many of the general practice nurse as they
were getting fixed budget by the commissioning (Delaney, 2018). Fixing a budget is not an issue
s all are being treated equally in that but still this demotivates individuals working in health and
social acre department and this also hampers their performances and duties. The attitude of the
individuals get very casual towards their work and they do not try and put extra efforts for their
duties. Many other criticism which was made by the people was related to the enforcement of the
act as the Act was the combination of both PCT and SHA. But it was good in a way that to refer
too many acts by an individual it is easier when all are summarised into one single act relating to
health and social care.
There has been many criticism made by many critics and other people of the England. But
the law turned out to be a great success. Although it did had flaws but those were neglected when

the positive results of it were seen by the society and the individuals at large. Several different
acts when were implied upon the activities of the NHS, created lots of confusion especially with
those relating to the distribution of powers and responsibilities of the authorities in carrying out
the functioning of the NHS. When all the laws phased out and comes under the ambit of the act
of 2012 of the health and social care, no confusion was present. This act clearly stated of the
roles, functions and other various responsibilities of the authorities in the health and social care
very specifically and in elaboration which makes it more powerful than that of those previous
acts. Therefore, even after so many criticism, the act sustained and now is very much known for
its success to very individual.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above discussion that providing the health and social care to the
citizen and the individuals living in the UK, is an intention of the NHS. Initially there were
various laws which were helping the NHS in the regulations of its functions and the activities.
But later in 2012, an act was passed relating to the health and social care which was long due to
be passed as the debate and discussion in the parliament was lengthy. Once the act came into
existence in 2012 and was implemented, many other laws relating to the NHS were phased out
so as to not create any kind of confusion. This act although had faced may kinds of criticism
from various individuals, critics, etc. but overall the act achieved most of its objective as it
wholly restructure the working of the NHS and there was no discrimination made like it was
earlier before the act. The act encouraged competition for which it also restricts upon mergers
who can affect the competition in this sector.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Delaney, L.J., 2018. Patient-centred care as an approach to improving health care in
Australia. Collegian, 25(1), pp.119-123.
Farrag, A. and Harris, Y., 2021. A discussion of the United States’ and Egypt’s health care
quality improvement efforts. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 14(1),
pp.136-143.
Field, R. and Brown, K., 2019. Effective leadership, management and supervision in health and
social care. Sage.
Harris, J. and Mayo, P., 2018. Taking a case study approach to assessing alternative leadership
models in health care. British Journal of Nursing, 27(11), pp.608-613.
Herron, R. and Skinner, M., 2018. Rural places and spaces of health and health care.
In Routledge Handbook of Health Geography (pp. 267-272). Routledge.
Leu, A., Frech, M. and Jung, C., 2018. “You don't look for it”—A study of Swiss professionals’
awareness of young carers and their support needs. Health & social care in the
community, 26(4), pp.e560-e570.
Russell, L.T., Beckmeyer, J.J. and Su-Russell, C., 2018. Family-centered care and positive
developmental outcomes for youth with special health care needs: Variations across
family structures. Journal of family nursing, 24(1), pp.29-59.
Schmutz, J.B. and Eppich, W.J., 2017. Promoting learning and patient care through shared
reflection: a conceptual framework for team reflexivity in health care. Academic
Medicine, 92(11), pp.1555-1563.