The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is the U.K. government department responsible for government policy on health and adult social care matters in England, along with a few elements of the same matters which are not otherwise devolved to the Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Northern Ireland Executive. It oversees the English National Health Service (NHS). The department is led by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care with three Ministers of State and three Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State.
Strategic health authorities (SHA) were part of the structure of the National Health Service in England between 2002 and 2013. Each SHA was responsible for managing performance, enacting directives and implementing health policy as required by the Department of Health at a regional level.
Independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs) are private-sector owned treatment centres contracted within the English National Health Service to treat NHS patients free at the point of use. They are sometimes referred to as 'surgicentres' or ‘specialist hospitals’. ISTCs are often co-located with NHS hospitals. They perform common elective surgery and diagnostic procedures and tests. Typically they undertake 'bulk' surgery such as hip replacements, cataract operations or MRI scans rather than more complex operations such as neurosurgery.
A special health authority is a type of NHS body which provide services on behalf of the National Health Service in England. Unlike other types of trust, they operate nationally rather than serve a specific geographical area.
Professor Sir Bruce Edward Keogh, KBE, FMedSci, FRCS, FRCP is a Zimbabwean-born British surgeon who specialises in cardiac surgery. He was Medical Director of the National Health Service in England from 2007 and National Medical Director of the NHS Commissioning Board from 2013 until his retirement early in 2018. He is Chair of Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust.
NHS Blood and Transplant is an executive non-departmental public body of the United Kingdom's Department of Health and Social Care. It was established on 1 October 2005 to take over the responsibilities of two separate NHS agencies: UK Transplant, founded by Dr. Geoffrey Tovey in 1972, and the National Blood Service. Its remit is to provide a reliable, efficient supply of blood, organs and associated services to the NHS. Since NHSBT was established, the organisation has maintained or improved the quality of the services delivered to patients, stabilised the rising cost of blood, and centralised a number of corporate services.
Milton Keynes University Hospital is a district general hospital serving Milton Keynes, its borough and the surrounding area of north Buckinghamshire, south Northamptonshire and north-west Bedfordshire. It is located in the Eaglestone neighbourhood, and opened in 1984. It is managed by Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. With the projected further growth of Milton Keynes and its population the hospital expects to be expanding its services over the next 20 years. The hospital has an association with the University of Buckingham Medical School.
NHS Supply Chain supports the National Health Service (NHS) in England, and other healthcare organisations in England and Wales, by providing purchasing and delivery of supplies.
Health care in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter, with England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each having their own systems of publicly funded healthcare, funded by and accountable to separate governments and parliaments, together with smaller private sector and voluntary provision. As a result of each country having different policies and priorities, a variety of differences now exist between these systems.
The National electronic Library for Health (NeLH) was a digital library service provided by the NHS for healthcare professionals and the public between 1998 and 2006. It briefly became the National Library for Health and elements of it continue to this day as NHS Evidence, managed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and a range of services provided by Health Education England's Library and Knowledge Service Leads.
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. Some services, such as emergency treatment and treatment of infectious diseases, are free for most people, including visitors.
Healthcare in the UK is mainly provided by the National Health Service, a public body that provides healthcare to all permanent residents of the United Kingdom that is free at the point of use and paid for from general taxation. Since health is a devolved matter, there are differences with the provisions for healthcare elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Though the public system dominates healthcare provision in England, private health care and a wide variety of alternative and complementary treatments are available for those willing to pay.
OPCS-4, or more formally OPCS Classification of Interventions and Procedures version 4, is the procedural classification used by clinical coders within National Health Service (NHS) hospitals of NHS England, NHS Scotland, NHS Wales and Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland. It is based on the earlier Office of Population Censuses and Surveys Classification of Surgical Operations and Procedures, and retains the OPCS abbreviation from this now defunct publication.
The Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) is a British government agency with the purpose of embedding the principles of sustainable development, social value and the wider determinants of health across the health and social care system in England.
University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS Foundation Trust in North West England, providing services in South Cumbria and North Lancashire in the Morecambe Bay area. It has about 6,000 employees and provides services for some 350,000 people.
Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust runs the 400 bed Barnsley Hospital in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England. It became a Foundation Trust in 2005.
Lorenzo patient record systems are a type of Electronic health record provided by DXC Technology, originally as part of the United Kingdom government’s National Programme for IT in the NHS.
Exercise Cygnus was a three-day simulation exercise carried out by NHS England in October 2016 to estimate the impact of a hypothetical H2N2 influenza pandemic on the United Kingdom. It aimed to identify strengths and weaknesses within the United Kingdom health system and emergency response chain by putting it under significant strain, providing insight on the country's resilience and any future ameliorations required. It was conducted by Public Health England representing the Department of Health and Social Care, as part of a project led by the "Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response Partnership Group". Twelve government departments across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as local resilience forums (LRFs) participated. More than 950 workers from those organisations, prisons and local or central government were involved during the three-day simulation, and their ability to cope under situations of high medical stress was tested.
NHS Test and Trace is a government-funded service in England, established in 2020 to track and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. It is part of the UK Health Security Agency; the service and the agency are headed by Jenny Harries.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, from March 2020 the British government had to rapidly place contracts and recruit a number of individuals, with the lack of personal protective equipment being a particular political issue for the second Johnson ministry. This led to a number of contracts being awarded without a competitive tendering process, and friends of political figures and people who had made political donations being "fast-tracked" into contracts. This led to accusations of cronyism or a "chumocracy".
