The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is 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.
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.
NHS Blood and Transplant is an executive special health authority 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.
Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust provided healthcare for people in south west Essex, in the East of England. There were two hospitals in the trust, a specialist cardiothoracic centre and one clinical centre: Basildon University Hospital, Orsett Hospital, The Essex Cardiothoracic Centre and Billericay St. Andrew's Centre. It became a Foundation Trust in 2004.
NHS Supply Chain supports the National Health Service (NHS) in England, and other healthcare organisations in England and Wales, by providing procurement and logistics services.
Special measures is a status applied by regulators of public services in Britain to providers who fall short of acceptable standards.
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 for most people. The NHS also conducts research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
Healthcare in England is mainly provided by the National Health Service (NHS), a public body that provides healthcare to all permanent residents in England, that is free at the point of use. The body is one of four forming the UK National Health Service, as health is a devolved matter; there are differences with the provisions for healthcare elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and in England it is overseen by NHS England. 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 and able 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.
Blackberry Hill Hospital is an NHS psychiatric hospital in Fishponds, Bristol, England, specialising in forensic mental health services, operated by the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust. The hospital also offers drug and alcohol rehabilitation inpatient services, and is the base for a number of community mental health teams.
The Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) was 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. In July 2022, as part of 'net zero' plans for the NHS, the SDU was replaced with the Greener NHS National Programme.
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 was a controversial electronic health record platform (EHR) by DXC Technology, originally designed in the early 2010s as part of the National Programme for IT in the NHS. Lorenzo was deployed across more than 20 NHS trusts across the United Kingdom between 2010 and 2015, with most trusts progressing procurement activities to replace the system as of 2020.
The Royal Bolton Hospital is an acute general hospital in Farnworth, Greater Manchester. It is managed by the Bolton NHS Foundation Trust.
Supply Chain Coordination Limited is a company registered in England and Wales on 25 July 2017 to manage the new NHS Supply Chain operating model, adopting its current company name on 15 November 2017. It was set up by the Department of Health and Social Care in 2018, and was intended to save £2.4 billion within 4–5 years. Consultants Ernst & Young were reportedly paid up to £20 million to help to establish the company. Running costs for the financial year 2018/19 were £180 million, but costs are predicted to grow to £250 million in 2019/20 and to £260 million in 2020/21. This will be taken from the tariff payments to NHS trusts.
Exercise Cygnus was a three-day simulation exercise carried out by the UK Government 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.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the British government decided in March 2020 to rapidly place contracts and recruit a number of individuals. Shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) were a particular political issue for the second Johnson ministry. This led to the awarding of a number of contracts without a competitive tendering process, and friends of political figures and people who had made political donations were quickly given contracts.
