Health and Social Care Act 2012
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provided for the most extensive reorganisation of the structure of the National Health Service in England to date. It removed responsibility for the health of citizens from the Secretary of State for Health, which the post had carried since the inception of the NHS in 1948. It abolished primary care trusts (PCTs) and strategic health authorities (SHAs) and transferred between £60 billion and £80 billion of "commissioning", or healthcare funds, from the abolished PCTs to several hundred clinical commissioning groups, partly run by the general practitioners (GPs) in England. A new executive agency of the Department of Health, Public Health England, was established under the act on 1 April 2013.
A panorama of the 'Block the Bridge' anti-cuts protest on Westminster Bridge, in October 2011
National Health Service (England)
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).
Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, which with 1237 beds is one of the largest NHS hospitals
Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, another large NHS hospital in England, which has 1213 beds
Aneurin Bevan. As health minister from 1945 to 1951, he spearheaded the establishment of the National Health Service
Leaflet concerning the launch of the NHS in England and Wales