UK Health Policy: A Historical and Ideological Analysis

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DEMONSTRATE UNDERSTANDING OF
THE HISTORICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL
DEVELOPMENT OF UK HEALTH POLICY
IDENTIFYING THE UNDERPINNING
PRINCIPLES AND VALUE
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................3
BODY...........................................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................10
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INTRODUCTION
This report will evaluate and analyse the two legislation or policies that are related to mental health and
older people. Mental health issues are more common in older people because of variety of reason such
as poor family support, not able to manage own task and stress. The various policies and legislation have
changed over time. The mental health of an individual can be explained as emotional, psychological and
social wellbeing. It affects the thinking process of a human being. In many countries older age is
considered after the job retirement of the individual. Usually, it is 60 to 65 years (Townsend and
Morgan, 2017). There are various changes has been seen in older age such as a change in social role and
functional abilities.
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BODY
The various legislation or policies has been designed in order to determine the health and wellbeing
status of the people. The ideas and ideologies are playing a great role in shaping evidence that can be
used to help in policy decision. Ideology or idea can be explained as a set of custom, value and belief the
individual must possess or to embrace for others (Townsend and Morgan, 2017). Health can be
measured as a political subject in whom its social factor can help to developed interventions. The
ideology or idea can influence to determine social care policy by various reasons such as socioeconomic
reality or geographical variation. In health care, the policy-making has been governed by 3 ‘I’ that is idea,
interest and institution (Townsend and Morgan, 2017). Any policy or legislation required a well-proven
idea, health care workers must show interest towards policy and an institution is being required in order
to develop it further and implement it.
MENTAL HEALTH
Mental health can be defined as a person able to cope up with the situation and can be able to adopt
changes (Gorman, 2017). Mental health is psychological wellbeing of the individual. It has been seen
that people with a busy schedule, unemployment, breaking the relationship and poor academic
performance or not able to accept the challenge generally experience mental health issue. There are
various issues that could lead to the development of mental health disorder such as anxiety, depression,
suicidal, loneliness, poor family support, learning disabilities, various mood disorders, injuries,
relationship problems and self-harm (Gorman, 2017). The multidisciplinary team can help the individual
with a mental disroder.
NO HEALTH WITHOUT MENTAL HEALTH 2014
No health without mental health strategy has been designed by the government of the UK (Barden,
Conley and Young, 2015). The strategy has been designed such that to improve mental health issue
because in the UK, people are more suffering from mental health and it affect their health and
wellbeing. There are namely six purposes of this strategy such as
MORE PERSON WILL HAVE GOOD AND BETTER MENTAL HEALTH
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The person with all age and background should have better wellbeing and better mental health. The
objective says that fewer person will suffer from mental health illness by living well, eating well,
progress well, starting well, educating well and starting well (Barden, Conley and Young, 2015).
MORE PERSON WITH A MENTAL HEALTH ILLNESS WILL IMPROVE
More people with a mental illness should improve their lives and live the quality of life. It improved to
access education, better employment rates, a unchanging place to survive and strong relationship.
MORE PERSON WITH A MENTAL ILLNESS WILL HAVE QUALITY OF HEALTH AND WELLNESS
A less person with mental health illness will die impulsively and more person with physical illness will
have better mental health status (Stewart-Brown et al., 2015).
PERSON WILL HAVE A GOOD EXPERIENCE OF CARE AND SUPPORT
Support and care must be accessible on time, evidence-based strategies and approaches can provide the
person to have choice and control over their exists and to ensure that their rights must be protected
safely (Stewart-Brown et al., 2015).
SOME PERSON WILL SUFFER PREVENTABLE HARM
People who are accessing various care and services must have self-assurance that the services and care
they are receiving is well proved, the highest quality and safe for them as any other services that are
available for public (Redley et al., 2019).
LESS PERSON WILL EXPERIENCE DISCERNMENT AND DISGRACE
Public understanding concerning mental illness will recover and it leads to a decrease in the undesirable
behaviour and attitude of the individual with mental health illness.
MENTAL HEALTH ACT 1983
The monarch system was formally made this law on 9th May 1983 (Cameron et al., 2018). It is a
legislation of parliament of the United Kingdom has been designed for the population of England and
Wales. The act covers various areas such as provide legislation for treatment, reception and care of the
mentally ill patient. This provides legislation in which an individual who is diagnosed with mental health
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illness can help in police custody or in hospital and they should deliver the quality of care and services
and health is treated against their wishes (Cameron et al., 2018). Under this act, every health care
provider or hospital or organization must provide quality care and services to the patient with a mental
health disorder. This act is divided into 10 parts:
 Consent to treatment
 Compulsory admission to custody and organization
 Management of affairs and property of service user
 Application of the act (Keown et al., 2018)
 Return and removal of the service user in the UK
 The miscellaneous function of the secretary of local and state authorities
 Mental health review court
 The service user concerned is under sentence or criminal proceeding
 Offences (Keown et al., 2018)
 Complementary and miscellaneous
The ten sections have divided into various sections and have given a specific number throughout the act
and hence this legislation contains 149 sections (Branton, Brookes and Brindle, 2018). In this act, every
section contains specific law and is being applied to every individual who is suffering from a mental
health issue.
OLDER PEOPLE
Old age can be explained as an age superior or approaching the life expectancy of an individual or it can
be said that the end of the human life cycle. Old age period generally starts after 60 to 65 years
(Hankivsky, Merich and Christoffersen, 2019). It can be considered as the period of after job retirement.
Old age people are commonly associated with mental trauma or disorder because of poor family
support, stress and ill health. Old aged people are not able to perform their work by own due to the
poor health condition and hence UK government has proposed several legislation and policies that could
provide support to the old aged people and protect from unsafe services and care (Hankivsky, Merich
and Christoffersen, 2019).
COMMUNITY CARE ACT
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Roy Griffiths has asked to investigate the progress of community health and services (Seo et al., 2019).
Griffith observed that the health and wellbeing of the community have been decreased and the
numbers of people are suffering from a health disorder. He concludes that it was due to lack of
leadership and responsibility among the community. He also observed that the quality of services and
care are provided to the financial stable person and no services have been provided to community care.
Griffith recommended forming a strategy or legislation such that care should be provided to the
community (Seo et al., 2019). Various local agencies have designed an appropriate budget in order to
provide services across the public and help in managing what care and services are necessary for older
people. The Griffith has made various approvals to provide care and services to the community. He
explained that appropriate action requires to be taken to manage community care. Griffith explained
that all decision and conclusion should be planned in the main hospital or another unit of organization
and if the resolution is taken in elsewhere, then informs the chairperson and provides justification (Seo
et al., 2019). The health care practitioner or provider must be involved in the decision process and must
provide full rights to raise their opinion. However to improve community health, the Community Act has
been made by the National Health Service. This act states that every health care worker or organization
must have a accountability to provide care and services to older people. This act has been designed to
access proper care and services because older aged people are usually suffered from a mental health
issue and other disorder and hence proper care is being needed to survive (Mechanic and Olfson, 2016).
There are various care centres such as interval care, day care and home care are available in order to
provide care and services to the older people. Other than this, the Community Care law provides various
resources so that health care workers are delivering good care and services by using several resources. A
community care notary has been appointed to check whether health care organization or workers are
offering a quality of care and services to the older people. Under this act, if anyone finds to be delivering
unsafe services and care to the older people, then local agencies have the authority to take legal action
against the organization or health care provider (Mechanic and Olfson, 2016).
EQUALITY ACT OF 2010
It is a legislation of assembly of the United Kingdom which came into force on 1 October 2010 (Davies et
al., 2016). The primary purpose of the Equality Act was to supplementing, consolidating and updating
the several prior legislation and acts. The equality act has been designed preliminary in order to protect
the individual from harassment, persecution in employment, discrimination that are based on several
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factors such as age, gender, sex, sexual orientation, maternity and pregnancy, civil partnership and
marriage, race, belief or region and disability. Under the equality act 2010, every citizen must be
provided equal opportunities and care without any discrimination of age, sex or gender, etc (Davies et
al., 2016). this act cover around 116 legislation that unit to form one act that is equality act which helps
in protecting the right of people and to provide various opportunities (Davies et al., 2016). There are
mainly nine pieces of legislation that merge to form an equality act.
 The Race Relations Act 1976
 The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 (Carrier and Kendall, 2015)
 The Equality Act 2006, Part 2 (Knapp et al., 2018)
 The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006
 The Disability Discrimination Act 1995
 Community Care Act
 The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (Knapp et al., 2018)
 The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007
 The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003
 The Equal Pay Act of 1970
This law has protected the breastfeeding mother and protects people from discrimination in the wider
community and the workplace (Knapp et al., 2018). Under the equality act, every health and social care
organization or health care practitioner must provide equal care and treatment to children, adult and
old people without any discrimination. If it has been finding that any unethical care is being practiced in
the organization, then various external agencies have rights to take legal action against the organization
or health care practitioner. It has been seen that the Equality Act has been adopted in various health
and social care organization in order to provide care and services without any discrimination (Knapp et
al., 2018).
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CONCLUSION
This report concluded that various set of policies or legislation have a positive impact on the health and
wellbeing of the individual. Mental health act 1983 and No health without mental health 2014 are the
two policies or legislation that has been designed for the individual with a mental health disorder. The
equality act 2010 and community care act has been designed in order to provide care and support to the
older people. In this report, the historical and ideological development of these policies or legislation
has been discussed. Older people are more tend to suffer from mental health illness and hence
appropriate care and services are required to maintain their health and wellbeing. The various policies
and legislation are being formed to address the mental health issue.
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REFERENCES
Barden, S., Conley, A. and Young, M., 2015. Integrating health and wellness in mental health
counseling: Clinical, educational, and policy implications. Journal of mental health counseling, 37(2),
pp.152-163.
Branton, T., Brookes, G. and Brindle, N., 2018. The Mental Health Act 1983: Criteria for detention.
Cameron, I.D., Dyer, S.M., Panagoda, C.E., Murray, G.R., Hill, K.D., Cumming, R.G. and Kerse, N.,
2018. Interventions for preventing falls in older people in care facilities and hospitals. Cochrane
database of systematic reviews, (9).
Davies, C., Ferreira, N., Morris, A. and Morris, D., 2016. The Equality Act 2010: five years on.
Gorman, M., 2017. Development and the rights of older people. In The ageing and development
report (pp. 21-39). Routledge.
Hankivsky, O., de Merich, D. and Christoffersen, A., 2019. Equalities ‘devolved’: experiences in
mainstreaming across the UK devolved powers post-Equality Act 2010. British Politics, pp.1-21.
Keown, P., Murphy, H., McKenna, D. and McKinnon, I., 2018. Changes in the use of the Mental
Health Act 1983 in England 1984/85 to 2015/16. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 213(4), pp.595-
599.
Knapp, M., Cambridge, P., Thomason, C., Beecham, J., Allen, C. and Darton, R., 2018. Care in the
community: Challenge and demonstration. Routledge.
Mechanic, D. and Olfson, M., 2016. The relevance of the Affordable Care Act for improving mental
health care. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 12, pp.515-542.
Redley, M., Lancaster, I., Pitt, A., Holland, A., Thompson, A., Bradley, J.R., Glover, G., Thomson, K.,
Jones, S., Herbert, B. and Holme, A., 2019. ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ under the UK’s Equality Act
2010: An enquiry into the care and treatment provided to patients with intellectual disabilities
following admission to acute hospital settings. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities.
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Seo, V., Baggett, T.P., Thorndike, A.N., Hull, P., Hsu, J., Newhouse, J.P. and Fung, V., 2019. Access to
care among Medicaid and uninsured patients in community health centers after the Affordable Care
Act. BMC health services research, 19(1), p.291.
Stewart-Brown, S., Samaraweera, P.C., Taggart, F., Kandala, N.B. and Stranges, S., 2015.
Socioeconomic gradients and mental health: implications for public health. The British Journal of
Psychiatry, 206(6), pp.461-465.
Townsend, M.C. and Morgan, K.I., 2017. Psychiatric mental health nursing: Concepts of care in
evidence-based practice. FA Davis.
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