National Health Service real value of this funding increase. National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the name used for each of the public health services in the United Kingdom – the NHS in England, NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and the affiliated Health and Social Care (HSC) in Northern Ireland – as well as a term to describe them collectively. They were established together in 1948 as one of the major social reforms following the Second World War. The founding principles were that services should be comprehensive, universal and free at the point of delivery. Each service provides a comprehensive range
National Health Service health service on behalf of another. For example, Northern Ireland has no high-security psychiatric hospitals and depends on hospitals in Great Britain, routinely at Carstairs hospital in Scotland for male patients and Rampton Secure Hospital in England for female patients. Similarly, patients in North Wales use specialist facilities in Manchester and Liverpool which are much closer than facilities in Cardiff, and more routine services at the Countess of Chester Hospital. There have been issues about cross-border payments. Taken together, the four National Health Services in 2015–16 employed around 1.6 million people with a combined budget of £136.7 billion. In 2014