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.

Funding

The NHS was, and largely remains, a system of healthcare intended to be "free at the point of delivery" and paid for by taxes. Nigel Lawson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer once said that it was the national religion. Private medical care remained, and remains, available in the UK.

Related Topics:
Nigel Lawson - Chancellor of the Exchequer

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Contrary to popular misconception, the founding principles of the NHS called for its funding out of general taxation, not through national insurance. As of March 2005, the NHS has 1.3 million employees, and is variously the third or fifth largest employer in the world, after the Chinese army, Indian Railways and (as argued by Jon Hibbs, the NHS's head of news, in a press release from March 22, 2005) Wal-Mart and the US Department of Defence. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/03/23/cnnhs23.xml http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,11032,1443862,00.html

Related Topics:
Taxation - National insurance - Chinese army - Indian Railways - Jon Hibbs - Wal-Mart - US Department of Defence

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