Health and Social Care Essay Example for Free

Health and Social Care Essay P2: Describe the Origins of Public Health Policy in the UK from the 19th Century to the Present Day. 1837- The law started registering births, marriages and deaths and began to notice differences in areas. This was because of diseases going round and many people were dying. They wanted to figure out where about the illnesses were most common. 1848- The Liberal government brought the Public Health Act into law. 1849- Unfortunately, a massive amount of 10,000 people died from the disease cholera. 1853- Vaccination for smallpox was made compulsory and started by Edward Jenner; this was because a great amount of people were getting ill and dying from it. 1870- The government forced local authorities to educate people about diseases, so that they then knew and could learn about them and help to prevent any more. 1875- Public Health Act forced local authorities to provide clean water, have proper drainage and appoint medical offices for each area. This was to improve deadly diseases and illnesses which were continuing to harm people. 1906- In this year free school meals law came about. 1907- Medical school examinations for children were introduced. 1918- The British Prime Minister Lloyd George promised soldiers returning home from the war, ‘Homes fit for Heroes’. It was important for people to have a good home environment. 1921- The local authorities were required to set up TB clinics. 1934- The government passed the free school milk act and local councils were encouraged to give poor children free school meals. This was because they were unfortunate and were not getting the correct amount of food and drink and it could have affected their health. 1942- Sir William Beveridge published a report on the best way of helping people on low income. 1944- Clement Attlee created the NHS based on the proposals of the Beveridge Report white paper published. 1948- On the 5th July the new NHS was launched. 1970- Margret Thatcher became the new Secretary of State and demanded cuts on four main areas: further education fees, library book borrowing charges, school meal charges and free school milk. 1980- Black Report came about, discussing inequalities in health between the rich and poor. It aimed to reduce child poverty, reintroducing free schools meals and milk, improving housing, employment, schools and more. 1998- Acheson Report, Acheson was asked to review inequalities in England and identify priority ones for the development of health. 1999- â€Å"Saving Lives Our Healthier Nation† this was what the Labour government released as a health strategy. P1: Describe key aspects of public health strategies. There are many strategies that have been used and have had a positive and a negative outcome when tried out in cities. Firstly, monitoring the health status of the population, this is where tracking changes and alerting people to potential problems would happen. An example for this would be ‘Census’ this where every 10 years since 1801 the nation chooses one day to do the census survey. In the survey it consists counting all people and households. Overall it’s the most complete information source that the population that the nation has. The most recent census survey was held on the Sunday 27 March 2011. Identifying the health needs of the population is a strategy that can and has been used within the population. In this strategy we are identifying implications of trends and patterns to services. A good example is in schools or any type of educating/studying places or just general talks where people are being taught about diabetes, better dieting and exercise. This would help peoples health increase more by having the knowledge about this. In addition, another strategy that has been used around the population is to develop programmes which would then try and reduce risks and screen for diseases. Doing this would reduce ill health by looking at and identifying people that are at risk and then promoting health. Years gone by the population have tried this strategy; for example, doing cancer research, advertisement programmes to let people know and smear tests. Controlling communicable disease, this is where programmes and schemes are made and brought out that are immunisation programmes which are there to reduce the impact of diseases. The nation for many years and are continuing on doing the same have TB injections. This is an example of controlling the communicable disease. These injections are there to immune human bodies to illness and disease which is called Tuberculosis. Furthermore, another strategy when it comes to public health is promoting the health of the population. Many companies and groups of people have experimented on trying to accomplish this. By doing this they have been promoting health activities to improve their health and their fitness. A lot of the programmes are basically trying to engage people so they understand they need to improve their health so they don’t turn obesity and generally just too improve and increase their fitness level. Planning and evaluating health and social care provision this is where the nation is accessing and impacting of health services. In every city there needs to be health services to help anyone that is in need. One of the services that are in many cities is the contraception service. These are companies that give tips and advice to young people that are sexually active. They also hand out free condoms so young girls don’t get pregnant when they are not ready and don’t want too. Finally, target setting, this is where targets are all set to reduce disease and to improve health. For example, pregnancy is a target where the nation wants to reduce how many young girls get pregnant. To reduce this contraception is purchasable in every supermarket, pharmacy’s etc†¦ In addition, there are companies that give away free contraception to reduce teenage pregnancy. Not only does contraception help prevent pregnancy but prevents people catching sexually transmitted diseases like HIV, Chlamydia and syphilis. M1: compare historical and current features of public health. Things that happened years ago have all changed to nowadays; either by a few changes but still very similar or dramatically changed in a positive way. Firstly, access to medical care. Years ago medical care in the 19th century was not very good. The hospitals were very basic, many beds in a large room (ward) there were very rarely curtains around the beds for privacy because in those days clothes were short and extra material would be made into clothing. Also, they may not have been very clean, they were hygienic to work in but for people that were very ill they may of made that person more poorly. Clinics were similar; they had the basic bed to check patients on and the small amount of medicines. Not all the time did they have the correct suitable medication for patients. So some patients may have had to suffer for longer than what they should off because it was hard to get medication that was going to cure what the patients had. They had doctors but not many; there would probably be one in each area. For them it would be hard work because if hundreds of people became ill they would have to try and cure and help all of them as soon as possible before anything spread to others or if it became worse. Nowadays, everything has improved since the 19th century. Hospitals are extremely huge with thousands of beds and many nurses and Doctors that are there to help and make people better. The beds and wards are much more advanced now; each bed is a medical bed than can be adjusted electrically. There are also curtains and clean beddings on each bed and gets changed more regular than what it would of years ago. Millions of pounds have been spent on machinery in the hospitals that help prevent patients getting more ill than what they are. For e.g. Ventilators they help people breathe if they are not capable to do so themselves while there body is mending itself. Clinics that we have in the days have improved over the years. If anyone has a problem they can walk in to a clinic or make an appointment at the Doctors/Pharmacy to be checked out. Most often, people that need medication are prescribed for their medicines and can get it straight away. Or if not straight away, within in the next day or so if it is needed to be ordered in. There are many more Doctors in each area, so it is easier for people to be seen to when they have a problem or not feeling very well. This is good because if there was an illness going round and a lot of people were getting it, the Doctors could help prevent other people catching it by asking them to come in and be immune with medicine so they do not become ill. Housing in the 19th century was extremely poor. In March 1840, the government were so concerned about sanitation and living conditions that they set up a Parliamentary Health Select Committee to report on Health of Towns. Its findings revealed the scale of overcrowding; this was causing extreme filth and diseases that resulted up in a widespread death. There would be a bunch of houses probably in a group of 10 that were in a block, usually with a down stairs and upstairs. For middle class people families would be living in 1 room together or if they had enough money and they were lucky they would get half of a house. All the houses would share the toilets which were outside the buildings. This caused a lot of disease because of all the natural waste of other people that others had to be around and had to use the toilet after when they wasn’t clean at all. People would become very ill and then it would spread to others which caused a large amount of people in an area to have a serious illness which most probably would lead to death. These days, housing has increasingly changed. They are much cleaner and people own them there self and do not have to share unless it isn’t their property and it’s a home that holds many people. People also rent houses that they can then say its there’s until they move out and is then owned by someone else. People have money for cleaning products to clean their house which is good because if nothing was cleaned people could become poorly from filth that can cause infection’s and diseases that people could then catch. Each and every house has either 1 or more toilets within the household. Neighbours do not have to share a toilet outside the house like they used too, they all just share within their house mates, which is so much cleaner. However, even though the housing conditions have improved by a lot in the past years, there are still some areas that are poorly looked after which affect people living around there. There are council houses all over each city that people live in but they do not own it it’s the councils and usually these houses are not in the best condition because people in it cannot afford to look after it properly. Many new drinks were invented in the 19th century and early 20th century. India Pale Ale was first made about 1820. Pimms was invented in 1823. The first golden lager was invented in Bohemia (Czech Republic) in 1842 by a man named Joseph Groll. The widget for beer cans was patented in 1985. Back in the day there were quite a few drinks about and people would happily drink them. Even if they didn’t know what was inside of them. It was mainly work men that consumed the most. After work they would head to a bar of somewhere that sells alcohol and they would have a few people they went home to see their family. Through the 1800’s young children could drink there was no law to say there was a restricted age on drinking alcohol. However in 1923 a law was passed in Britain banning the sale of alcohol to people under 18. People may not of known how much they could drink until it would become dangerous. People were drinking non-stop at some points a then became very poorly. In Britain these days, the same law is around for the no drinking unless 18 years or over. However, when buying alcohol now if the person looks under the age of 25 years the person that is selling the alcohol needs to ask for an ID to make sure they are not selling it to someone that is under aged. Britain has also been known to be called ‘Binge Britain’ this is because so many people binge drink every week. Every night and especially on the weekends a lot of people end up in hospital getting their stomach pumped because they have consumed too much alcohol and have passed out because they are so dehydrated and their body cannot handle any more of the bad liquid. Income from the 19the century to now has changed massively. Years ago people would work hard and for long hours of the day and get paid such small amounts. In the 1800’s wages and average living standards were extremely low and 45% would actually amount to very little. In 1834 the weekly wage of an average agricultural worker was nine shillings. Its the equivalent of 45p and would be worth just under  £48 today. A lone mother would get just over four shillings a week, roughly the equivalent of 20p, which would be worth an estimated  £19 today. This could of and most probably effected peoples health because they may not off been able to afford certain products for themselves or their family. Someone may have been poorly and needed particular items to make them better and if they couldn’t be bought then that person would have to suffer, Nowadays wages are different to what they used to be.