Overview of Services
The health care system in the United Kingdom is a national budget health insurance system. The main feature of the UK health insurance system is the National Health System (NHS). The British government emphasizes wide and equal access to health care services, and the government finances the national health care service mainly through taxation. The NHS model of health insurance in the UK is divided into two systems: the community health care system and the hospital system. The community health care system provides more than 90% of primary health care services and transfers less than 10% of services to the hospital service system. The community health care system consists of two main aspects, namely, general medical services and community nursing, and the medical services provided include treatment of common diseases, health education, social prevention and home care, etc., while various injuries and acute illnesses can be directly treated in hospitals. Although the UK health sector has taken measures to restrict the use of hospital services by patients, hospitals remain the largest consumer of NHS funding, with 70% of NHS funding going to hospital services each year. NHS funding is mainly invested by the state. This free NHS health care system is conducive to expanding the scope of health care services, so that everyone has access to health care, and in this regard, the free health care system is very favorable to the general public from.
Methods of financing
The United Kingdom passed and enacted the National Health Service Act in 1948, expanding the scope of health insurance to all citizens and implementing a universal health insurance system. This system, also known as the National Health Service (NHS), is financed mainly by centralized revenues, which account for about 80% or more of all national health care costs. The rest is made up by people's national insurance contributions, prescription fees for visits to the doctor, and payments made by beneficiaries for timely and higher-quality medical services. Financing is on a pay-as-you-go basis.
The conditions for enjoying the universal medical service are that all nationals who have a professional job, each person pays 0.75% of the monthly salary, the employer pays 0.6% of the total salary, and the independent workers and farmers pay 1.35% of their income as the medical care fee, and then they can enjoy the free medical treatment unified by the state, including their families. To curb waste, a 2.2-pound fee is charged for each prescription, as well as a number of other charges, because of the steep rise in medical costs.
Benefit standards
(1) Medical insurance system components.
The UK's universal healthcare service ensures that anyone living in the UK, without the need to qualify for insurance, will be able to enjoy a fairly comprehensive healthcare service at no or low cost. The universal health service consists of three parts: hospital and community health services, home health services, and health and miscellaneous services. It is the first component that predominates here, accounting for 68.6 percent of all health care costs in fiscal year 1993-1994.
(2) Medicare Entitlement Criteria.
A. Under the National Health Act, all British people are entitled to free medical care. But there is a charge for dental surgery, vision tests and glasses, and a prescription charge for every medicine prescribed by a doctor. The following people are exempt from paying for prescriptions: mothers, breastfeeding mothers, children, pensioners, patients who have suffered a medical emergency, recipients of war or service-connected invalidity benefits, and families on low incomes. Outpatient dental examinations are free of charge. Patients are charged the first pound for dental treatment, but school children under 21, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers are exempt, and young school leavers aged 16-21 pay for dentures. Children's spectacles can be fitted free of charge.
B. The universal health-care system provides for the treatment of the elderly, the disabled and the mentally ill by physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, physiotherapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists and psychologists, and for the free provision of prosthetic limbs, eyes, hearing aids, wheelchairs and other means of medical treatment. Seriously injured and disabled patients have free use of equipment such as ringers, radios, televisions, telephones and heaters.
C. The services of the universal health care system also include inspection, supervision and management of issues related to school health, family health, food safety, drug safety, environmental health, health education, epidemic prevention, drug addiction treatment, abortion, alcoholism, private medical care, and the training of medical personnel.
(3) Methods of payment of medical expenses.
The universal health care program in the United Kingdom has the social security authorities pay the medical fees directly to the hospitals and drug suppliers that provide the services. There is no direct financial relationship between the sick insured person and the hospital. This free medical service is usually by government agencies, enterprises or health insurance authorities, doctors and hospitals or drug suppliers to sign a contract, according to the services, categories, the number of people treated, etc., to provide the appropriate remuneration or fixed salary, for the cost of medicine according to the provisions of the reimbursement of reimbursement. In the UK, medical services are provided to all British citizens, and those who do not participate in social insurance only enjoy the right to medical care, but are not entitled to receive cash compensation.
Administration
The implementation of the Universal Health Care Act is administered by the government's Department of Health. There are more than 100 District Health Authorities and Boards throughout the UK, which are responsible for managing the practical implementation of national health care. Each district has a general hospital, and has general hospitals, dispensaries, health centers, psychiatric hospitals, infectious disease hospitals, maternity hospitals, tuberculosis hospitals and other specialized hospitals. The NHS*** currently has 2,700 hospitals, over 37,000 medical staff (of whom about 14,000 are physicians), 415,700 nursing and midwifery staff and about 500,000 beds. In addition, there are 27,000 doctors in private practice, 949 ophthalmologists and some 15,500 dentists under contract to the health authorities to serve the NHS. There are also some 10,670 retail pharmacies throughout the country contracted by the Health Authority to dispense NHS prescriptions.
In 1998, 52 percent of UK pension fund assets were in domestic equities (53 percent in the United States, 10 percent in France and Germany), 18 percent were in foreign assets (11 percent in the United States, 5 percent in France, and 7 percent in Germany), and the rest were in bonds, cash, and industrial assets. The growth of occupational and personal pension schemes has contributed to the development of financial markets. In terms of the assets of pension funds as a share of GDP, the assets of UK pension funds amounted to 74.7% of GDP in 1997, compared with 58.2% in the United States, 5.6% in France, 5.8% in Germany, and 3.0% in Italy over the same period.