UK Healthcare Policy - Assignment Example

UK NHS HEALTHCARE POLICY College UK NHS HEALTHCARE POLICY For any government, the development of a healthcare system is an important aspect of country development. The government is responsible for instituting various health policies that define the access, availability and the funding of National Health Service. The development of a country is measured on the ability of the government to develop a standard healthcare system that provide affordable, accessible and efficient healthcare to the public. In the UK, the National Health Service has continuously evaluated its health policy to ensure that it satisfies the demand of the public. A recent evaluation of the UK healthcare policy shows that while policies have contributed to a positive change in society development, there is still need to improve these policies. An area of keen interest is the increase in lifestyle diseases within the country, which has now raised an alarm within the public. Despite the efforts of the NHS policy ton use a preventive approach to reduce lifestyle diseases, it is clear that diseases such as Cancer, hypertension and lung diseases are on the rise. This essay seeks to critically appraise the evaluation of the NHS policy to identify various weaknesses and the strengths of this policy. In the recent past, there has been a great rise in lifestyle related diseases such as cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, gout and heart diseases (Shepard, 2010: Chock lingam and Beleaguer, 1999). These diseases have become major killers in the world and are very expensive to treat. The government ever increasing budget allocation in health has not made any progress in reducing the health problems in most countries. In the United Kingdom there exists free medical care for its citizens as one way of showing its community towards creation of zero-disease environment (Kumar & Kumar, 2003). The NHS Despite use of many resources used for treatment of patients, it is clear that the health demands are increasing each day as the population grows and there is little chance for the establishment of a healthy society. Statistics show that the government and public spending is expected to spend more on diseases such as cancer and heart diseases in the near future. This has raised question among many scholars who feel that the government should find an alternative strategy towards creation of a health environment. The NHS policy has paid a lot of attention to lifestyle diseases in the past ten years. The NHS policy seeks to the reduce lifestyle diseases by engaging a preventive approach that seeks to intervene on this problem. To begin with, the government has started educational programs to educate the public on the need for healthy eating and use physical exercises. The NHS policy regulates abuse of drugs and seeks to reduce the consumption of alcohol, cigarette and Bhang within the public. It provides laws to regulate the quality of foods that the public eat and to guarantee that all food outlets provide healthy food stuffs. The Health and Social Care Act of 2012 had the objective of reducing health related diseases to the lowest level possible to ensure a safer and healthier society in the UK. In regard, the government instituted national campaigns to support this objective and established strong teams to support the intervention measures. Notably, the NHS policy has played a key role in the reduction of a number of lifestyle diseases in the UK. Research shows that the NHS policy has led to the reduction of Cancer mortality by 19% since the year 2000 (Gregory, 2014). This can be linked to the ability of the policy to reduce cigarette smoking and within the public. Sensitizing the public about the dangers of cigarette smoking and actively counselling the youths may have contributed to this trend. Similarly, mortality due to cardiovascular diseases has reduced by 43% between the year 2000 and 2015. Heart diseases have been linked with poor lifestyles such as consumption of excessive fat and lack of physical exercises. On this note, the NHS policy has been effective, to some extent in the reduction of lifestyle diseases in the UK within the last decade. However, there is evidence that some lifestyle diseases still prevail within the UK and are still matters of significant interest. Between 2007 and 2010, the proportion of obese adults increased by 2% and the same trend is expected to continue in the next 20 years. By the year 2035, it is expected that about 40% of Adults in the UK will suffer from Obesity and more youths will have joined in this category. This warns that the NHS Policy has been inefficient in its national health campaigns that are meant to stimulate healthy living culture. Secondly, there is evidence that alcohol and cigarette consumption is on the rise among the teenage group. For instance, cigarette smoking reduced only by 1% over a period of ten years in the implementation of the National Health Service Policy (Gregory, 2014). While there appears to be a change in the lifestyle patterns, it is proven that health policies have a long way to go in ensuring a healthy nation and to achieve its set goals. Critics have challenged the UK government to refine its laws to prevent lifestyle diseases within the public. Understanding the health care policy structures is an important milestone in analysing the effectiveness of the National Health Service in the UK. The government health policies in a country determine the efficiency of the healthcare system. In the UK, the National Hospital service programme provides the public with a free medical healthcare system that guarantees every patient the right to free health services. The UK government budget allocation to healthcare is greater than that of America by 8%. This is different in the US the government provides an integrated approach to medical care insurance (Gregory, 2014). A combination of private and public insurance policies are available for the public and the have a liberal choice to select one or several that best suit their needs. UK NHS policy is much similar to that of Canada, where the government instituted the Canada Health Act that demanded that all health services be government funded. In terms of funds allocation, the Canadian government spends a greater proportion of its income than either UK or US. In UK and US, healthcare is taxpayer funded and the policies strive to ensure that the rich take care of the expenses of the poor. This mechanism of funding is completely different from one used by Canada, where the government funds most the health budget (Ham, 2011). In this light, the health policies in US seem more hostile that those applied by both UK and Canada. The UK healthcare structure is divided into strategy, policy and management and the actual medical care sections. Again, the medical care section is divided into primary or community care, secondary and tertiary care. Both public and private health services have existed since the history of healthcare in this country. Just like in UK, both private and public health services are available for the citizens of Canada. In US, a more integrated structure exists and both government insurance policies, combined and private health care insurances exist. Medicare is the government insurance program that paid by payroll taxes and the eligibility is determined by the federal government. On the other hand, Medicaid is a combined health insurance that encompasses the federal and state government. Medicaid is funded by the state and federal taxes and some federal standards are applied when determining eligibility. Most of the healthcare providers in US, as opposed to UK, are private and there is insignificant federal presence in the health environment. In the UK, there is a balance between the private and public health providers, a situation that is completely different from that of US (Marchildon & European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, 2013). These different structures of health systems underpin the difference in the efficiency of healthcare systems in these countries. Many health scholars have settled on the fact that lifestyle related diseases can only be reduced or eliminated through use of preventive strategies. Russel and Jarvis (2003) argue that the reason why the people the government has failed to succeed in control of diseases is the use of post-active approach. The government has paid attention to purchase of treatment equipment and medicine, ignoring the need to motivate the society to adopt good healthy behaviour (O’Connor 2000). These authors seem to subscribe to the notion that it is easy to control unhealthy human behaviour. For instance, cigarette smoking is known for the increasing instance of lung and heart cancer in the society today. Poor hygiene among the poor societies in the world causes outbreaks of diseases such as Cholera and Diarrhoea. Encouraging such a society to adopt a hygienic culture would help to reduce such occurrences and save the life of many people. Numerous efforts have been launched to use primary prevention approaches to reduce diseases within the community. The fact that these campaigns have had an impact in the health sector shows that it is possible to use a preventive approach to safeguard the health of the society. Behind the theories advocating for use primary prevention approaches towards disease prevention exist theories that claim that that poor health behaviours are difficult to change. These theories study the human behaviour and come into a conclusion that those people who have poor health behaviours find it difficult to change. Russell and Jarvis (2003) state that while it is possible to change poor health behaviour it is a great challenge. The main reason for this argument is that these behaviours are embedded in culture and traditions, aspects of human beings that are very difficult to change. For instance, cultural behaviour dictates the level of hygiene in the community. While some communities advocate that for cleanliness in every aspect, others may fail to emphasize on this aspect. Since people are deeply entrapped in the cocoons of culture, it is a difficult task to inspire them to drop unhealthy cultural behaviour that pre-disposes them to diseases. In some culture such as the Jamaican, there is a religious belief that Bhang is ordained and should be used for religious purposes. On this note, it is quite a challenge for health service providers and the government to convince the people to drop poor health habits. The proponents of the theories of primary prevention strategies have targeted nutrition related diseases. Diseases such as Obesity are caused by excessive eating, which can be avoided to reduce such instance (Coulson & Bushy, 2008). The government in many countries has encouraged the society to adopt healthy eating habits to protect the society from severe health consequences. However, social psychologists have provided theories to explain why it is difficult to change such behaviour. Strobe (2011) states that it is quite difficult for many people to change their eating behaviour or even lose weight. The main reason is that eating is a psychological process that many people cannot change. The human brain is accustomed to specific eating patterns that are difficult to change. As a result, it is poses a danger for the people to change their eating patterns. In some cases where people struggle to control their eating behaviour, they end developing negative eating behaviours that affect their eating habits. For instance, anorexia is a disorder that develops as people develop psychological fear of becoming overweight. The fact that some poor health behaviours are psychological, it becomes difficult to control them. Additionally, some poor health behaviours are addictive and stopping them is very difficult. Cleland and Cotton (2011) addictive behaviours are hard to change and this makes it almost impossible to avoid the risk of disease infection. For instance, smoking tobacco is an addictive behaviour that many in the society have admitted to have found difficult to stop. While health promoters provide education and warn the smokers against predisposing themselves to cancer, the addicts find it hard to stop the behaviour. While they may have indulged in such behaviour out of peer pressure, they end becoming addicts such that they cannot live without it. When some smokers stop smoking, they suffer from withdrawal side effects such as nose bleeding, which makes them revert to their ill behaviour. In one way, it is possible to agree with the argument that it is difficult to change poor health behaviour within the public. In practical applications, it has proved that the efforts to reduce cancer through preventive approaches have not succeeded. In countries such as UK where awareness on smoking have been, lung cancer is still a killer disease in the society. The controversy of the theories revolving around the applicability of change of poor health behaviour to prevent diseases has raised the question of the future of long term strategies in the society. Authors such as Cohen et al (2010) admit that it is difficult to change poor health behaviour but provide that it is not entirely impossible. While the proponents of the idea that poor health habits are difficult to change are pessimistic on the idea of primary prevention approach, those against this idea provide an argument that primary prevention promises a future of disease free society. Another approach to preventive control of diseases has emerged. This approach aims at preventing poor health behaviours rather than striving to change them. For instance, by introducing laws prohibiting the use of tobacco in countries, it is possible to reduce the cases of cancer within the health environment (Hunt, 2009). However, it is clear that either way the road to a preventive approach is tough but has long term positive impact on the social health in future. The government in all countries have a role to increase their commitment to fight against the barriers of preventive approaches. From a critical point of view, the UK NHS policy still lacks the necessary substance to promote a healthy society. While it is has continuously improved its efficiency, it is clear that there exists obstacles in controlling lifestyle related diseases within the society. Although the government has allocated more resource to fight such diseases, it is possible that efficiency is not optimal and there is still need to improve this policy. A major weakness exists in its mandate to control eating habits within the public domain (Boyle, 2013). This explains the reason why the rates of obesity are still high within the public, while such ailments can be prevented. Obesity is among major causes of increase in heart related diseases and high blood pressure which are major killers in the world today. Research shows that the NHS policy has failed because they have lacked an integrative approach which is essential in handling such complex problems. An integrative policy is one that allows both the health professionals and the public to actively participate. Since lifestyle is something that is difficult to change without the public participation, it would be crucial to involve the public in this strategy. For instance, the government should create awareness on the need for physical activity among the public to ensure that they work together in the fight. Secondly, the policy needs to be stricter on issues such as alcohol consumption and smoking within the public. It would be crucial for the government to increase taxation on such goods to ensure that they are unaffordable, hence discouraging smoking within the society. Ability to transform the UK health care policy will be a milestone in ensuring a safe and healthy society in future. In conclusion, the NHS policy in UK has its own strengths but has suffered a lot of criticism. While the indicators of health state point out that there is a positive improvement in the health state within the public, there is evidence that there are new alarms within the health sector. Lifestyle diseases have become serious killers in the recent past as more people engage in unhealthy eating habits and abuse of substances. The increase in the cases of cancer, obesity, cardiovascular and blood diseases all point out to ineffectiveness of the NHS in fighting lifestyle related diseases. From this perspective, the NHS needs to re-evaluate its business strategy to ensure that they implement a policy that confronts this problem head on. From a close perspective, it is clear that this policy has failed to effect strict measures to control unhealthy patterns among the public. Additionally, the government has failed to launch an integrative approach that allows both the public and the government in fighting these diseases. Given that lifestyle is complex to change, the NHS policy has to be more participative and integrative in this war. The development of a more strict policy will be crucial in facilitating social care within the public. Bibliography Boyle, S, 2013, Health Systems in Transition: UK Health System Review. Available at:< http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/135148/e94836.pdf> Cleland, J., & Cotton, P. 2011, Health, behaviour and society: Clinical medicine in context. Exeter: Learning Matters. Cohen, L., Chávez, V., & Chehimi, S. 2010, Prevention is primary: Strategies for Community well-being. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Coulston, A. M., & Boushey, C. 2008, Nutrition in the prevention and treatment of disease. Amsterdam: Academic Press. 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