Singapore
In Singapore, community hospitals are a class of hospitals that provide continuation of care after discharge from acute hospitals, including rehabilitation and therapy.[ citation needed ]
A community hospital can be purely a nominal designation or have a more specific meaning. When specific, it refers to a hospital that is accessible to the general public, and provides a general or specific medical care which is usually short-term, in a cost-effective setting, and also focuses on preventing illnesses and not only treating them. [1] [2] [3] The word community often occurs in the name of the hospital. The word community is used in the sense of a location-based community for a community hospital. The following sections describe community hospitals when referred to in specific countries.
In Singapore, community hospitals are a class of hospitals that provide continuation of care after discharge from acute hospitals, including rehabilitation and therapy.[ citation needed ]
In Thailand, community hospital is a specific classification of public hospitals with a capacity of 150 beds or fewer. They serve local populations in provincial districts, providing primary care.[ citation needed ]
An older term "cottage hospital" is now no longer applicable, having fallen from use because it inadequately describes the wide range of services being offered by their more modern equivalents. [4] For many years the development of community hospitals was ad hoc, reflecting history rather than any rational planning. [5]
The (non-statutory) phrase is used in England in a similar manner to Scotland. Actual arrangements will be under legislation applicable to the English NHS.
In Northern Ireland the phrase has similar use to Scotland but official publications give the appearance of community hospitals being more recent as a concept rather than a mere description.
"Community Hospital" is not a statutory phrase but it is often used where there is "a unit or centre providing an appropriate range and format of accessible health care facilities and resources". [6] Medical care is normally led by GPs, in liaison with consultant, nursing and allied health professional colleagues as necessary. These hospitals are typically small, using either purpose-built new premises or smaller general hospitals which have been retained to provide non-emergency services after general hospital services have been transferred to more centralised facilities; in some cases the services include in-patient care. Community hospitals can assist multidisciplinary working and can be used as an extended primary care resource. [7] Community hospitals provide over 2,900 inpatient beds and over 750,000 outpatient, allied health professional and nurse led appointments. In many rural and remote communities this allows access to more specialised services and inpatient facilities closer to home. [8]
The (non-statutory) phrase is used in Wales in a similar (but possibly less restricted) manner to Scotland. Some are named as community hospitals and many more are also listed as having this function. [9] Some community hospitals have been chosen to act as a hub for services. [10] Actual arrangements will be under legislation applicable to NHS Wales/Gig Cymru.
The American Hospital Association (AHA) defines community hospitals as “all nonfederal, short-term general, and other special hospitals.” Health associations and hospital rating organizations, however, typically also say that teaching hospitals are not community hospitals. Some further restrict the community hospital definition to only include independently run facilities serving a local demographic. A basic definition, therefore, is a hospital serving a local community, run by local leaders, providing financial opportunities for the local economy. A community hospital can be either rural or urban. [11]
Many of the rural hospitals in Africa are small, community hospitals.
Algeria
Algeria has 273 community hospitals denoted EPSP, which stands for etablissement de sante de publique de proximite in French. Polyclinics are also used at the community level. There is an average of one polyclinic per 25,000 inhabitants in Algeria. [12]
A clinic is a health facility that is primarily focused on the care of outpatients. Clinics can be privately operated or publicly managed and funded. They typically cover the primary care needs of populations in local communities, in contrast to larger hospitals which offer more specialized treatments and admit inpatients for overnight stays.
Marie Curie is a registered charitable organisation in the United Kingdom which provides hospice care and support for anyone with an illness they’re likely to die from, and those close to them, and campaigns for better support for dying people. It was established in 1948, the same year as the National Health Service (NHS).
Raigmore Hospital is a health facility located in Inverness, Scotland. It serves patients from the local area as well as providing specialist services to patients from across the Highland area. It is a teaching hospital, educating a range of healthcare professionals in association with the Universities of Aberdeen and Stirling. It is managed by NHS Highland.
Allied health professions are health care professions that provide a range of diagnostic, technical, therapeutic, and support services in connection with health care. Their services are allied with and support the work of a number of other professions not considered allied health professions, such as medicine, nursing, dentistry, optometry, pharmacy, and others listed below as "excluded professions".
Polyclinics in England were intended to offer a greater range of services than were offered by current general practitioner (GP) practices and local health centres. In addition to traditional GP services they would offer extended urgent care, healthy living services, community mental health services and social care, whilst being more accessible and less medicalised than hospitals. A variety of models were proposed, ranging from networks of existing clinics to larger premises with several colocated general practitioner (GP) practices, more extensive facilities and additional services provided by allied healthcare professionals.
A mental health trust provides health and social care services for people with mental health disorders in England.
NHS Wales is the publicly-funded healthcare system in Wales, and one of the four systems which make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom.
NHS Scotland, sometimes styled NHSScotland, is the publicly funded healthcare system in Scotland and one of the four systems that make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It operates 14 territorial NHS boards across Scotland, supported by seven special non-geographic health boards, and Public Health Scotland.
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Ayrshire Central Hospital, also known as Irvine Central Hospital, is an NHS hospital in Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotland. It is managed by NHS Ayrshire and Arran.
The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England, and one of the four National Health Service systems in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world after the Brazilian Sistema Único de Saúde. Primarily funded by the government from general taxation, and overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS provides healthcare to all legal English residents and residents from other regions of the UK, with most services free at the point of use for most people. The NHS also conducts research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
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A healthcare center, health center, or community health center is one of a network of clinics staffed by a group of general practitioners and nurses providing healthcare services to people in a certain area. Typical services covered are family practice and dental care, but some clinics have expanded greatly and can include internal medicine, pediatric, women’s care, family planning, pharmacy, optometry, laboratory testing, and more. In countries with universal healthcare, most people use the healthcare centers. In countries without universal healthcare, the clients include the uninsured, underinsured, low-income or those living in areas where little access to primary health care is available. In the Central and East Europe, bigger health centers are commonly called policlinics.
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