The National Health Service is the name used to refer to the publicly-funded healthcare systems in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as to all four systems collectively. Three national services (for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) were established by separate pieces of legislation and began operating on 5 July1948; prior to that date more limited public health services were operated by local authorities and other bodies. Responsibility for public health services in Wales passed to the Secretary of State for Wales in 1969.[1]
Each system operates independently and is politically accountable to the relevant devolved administration for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to the UK government for England. Few matters are subject to common UK government control across all four of the current systems described in the articles:-
There is no discrimination where a patient resident in one country of the United Kingdom requires treatment in another, though repatriation of an in-patient might be made after initial treatment and stabilisation leaves a need for continuing hospital care. Occasionally a patient requiring specialised emergency care (publicised cases commonly involve childbirth complications) might be transferred away from their own national area. The consequent financial matters and paperwork of such inter-working are dealt with between the organisations involved and there is generally no personal involvement by the patient comparable to that which might occur when, for example, a resident of one European Union member country receives treatment in another.
