Concept

National Health Service

Overview

The National Health Service (NHS) is the collective term for the four separate publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service in England, NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland, which were created separately, and are often referred to collectively or individually as "the NHS".

The three original systems for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were established in 1948 – with a Welsh system later founded in 1969 – as part of major social reforms following the Second World War, and officially launched at Park Hospital in Davyhulme, near Manchester, England (now known as Trafford General Hospital). The founding principles were that services should be comprehensive, universal and free at the point of delivery. Each system provides a comprehensive range of health services, provided without charge for residents of the United Kingdom apart from dental treatment and optical care, though NHS patients in England who are not exempt have to pay prescription charges.

Taken together, the four systems in 2015–16 employed around 1.6 million people with a combined budget of £136.7 billion. In 2024, the total health sector workforce across the United Kingdom was 1,499,368. When purchasing consumables such as medications, the four healthcare systems have significant market power that influences the global price, typically keeping prices lower. A small number of products are procured jointly through contracts shared between systems. Several other countries directly rely on Britain's assessments for their own decisions on state-financed drug reimbursements.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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What is called the unfunded debt of Great Britain, is contracted in the former of those two ways. It consists partly in a debt which bears, or is supposed to bear, no interest, and which resembles the debts that a private man contracts upon account; and partly in a debt which bears interest, and which resembles…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
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The nations of Europe have had the very same Christian religion, agreeing in the fundamental parts, varying a little in the ceremonies and in the subordinate doctrines. The whole of the polity and economy of every country in Europe has been derived from the same sources. It was drawn from the old Germanic or Gothic custumary, from the feudal institutions which must be considered as an emanation from that custumary…
Edmund Burke, Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke
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In the second place, every case where moral action is required becomes of equal moral importance and urgency with every other. If the need and deficiencies of a specific situation indicate improvement of health as the end and good, then for that situation health is the ultimate and supreme good. It is no means to something else. It is a final and intrinsic value.
John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy
Close in meaning to National Health Service; the term itself is not named.
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