National Health Service

The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly-funded healthcare system of the United Kingdom. The organisation provides the majority of healthcare in the UK, from general practitioners to Accident and Emergency Departments, long-term healthcare and dentistry.

Related Topics:
Publicly-funded healthcare system - United Kingdom - General practitioner - Accident and Emergency Department - Long-term healthcare - Dentistry

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A peculiarity of the NHS compared to other public healthcare systems in Continental Europe is that not only does it pay directly for health expenses (with minor partial exceptions like prescriptions and dentistry it is free at the point of use), it also employs the doctors and nurses that provide them, and in most cases owns and runs its hospitals and clinics. However, under the Private Finance Initiative, an increasing number of hospitals have been built (or rebuilt) by private sector consortia, and have non-medical services (such as catering) provided under long-term contracts by the same consortia. Also, GPs are private practitioners, being self-employed, under contract to the NHS. So the NHS relies on private healthcare provision, despite its socialist roots. For example, under their new national General Medical Services (GMS) contract GPs earn more than £84,000 a year for a 8am to 6pm Mo-Fr job (i.e. no out-of-hours work, unlike before this contract came in last year).

Related Topics:
Private Finance Initiative - GP - Self-employed

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