The National Health Service (NHS) has been was formed on July 5th 1948, by Health Secretary Aneurin Bevan. The NHS was intended to be universal and free for all to use, as before the NHS the majority of individuals were unable to access free healthcare. The service was aiming to be comprehensive in the sense that it would cover all aspects of healthcare, "medical, nursing and other specialist services; hospital and community services; mental health and physical health problems; personal and public health services; curative and preventative services" (Kendall, 1995). The NHS was founded on three core principles and these principles have guided the NHS since then, however they have since been developed. .
These core principles are:.
1. That it meet the needs of everyone.
2. That it be free at the point of delivery .
3. That it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay.
(NHS, 2011).
The NHS has changed over time and there is a greater demand on the services that the NHS provides. This has therefore influenced the NHS. Factors that influence the NHS in modern Britain include: lack of finance, over-politicization, lack of staff, immigration and higher expectations and demands that people place upon the NHS. Each of these can inter-relate and some act as a cause and effect of each other. .
Over politicization is a factor that influences the NHS in these modern times. There are many reasons to why the government is involved in healthcare, one of the main reasons is that, access to health care is considered to be a human right "and one is that citizens expect the Government to assure, all governments in all countries are involved in health care (kingsfund, 2002). With that said problems can arise when the government becomes too politically involved in the NHS. One of the main reasons is that the government tries to align their political ideologies with policies. This can cause conflict as it can be difficult implementing policies in such a complex system.