Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Research So Far...

The research for my paper on the English Healthcare system has been going well so far. There’s a lot of information pertaining to England’s healthcare system and it’s very interesting to track the systems development and implementation. I would like to have a few more books as a reference. What I found that was interesting was that in England there are private healthcare options available for those citizens wishing to pay for it. The English private healthcare options are normally specialist referrals and in other instances are parts of employer benefit packages from large companies. However most English citizens use their NHS (National Health Service) Sometimes patients may be subcontracted out to private healthcare by the NHS for certain treatment options. Primary care as their first option. Also another interesting note is that non-residents of the UK always receive free treatment at the time of emergencies.

One issue that I have found pertaining to the English healthcare system is that the quality of care varies depending on the region that you’re in. Supposedly Scotland has exceptional healthcare services due to the fact that their healthcare system is composed of 14 health boards and is not handled by the NHS. There are also complaints that the quality of service that the NHS provides for citizens is subpar in some instances. These are all issues that I will address in more depth in my paper. There is a lot of information on the English healthcare system the only real trouble I have run into so far is wading through material to find what’s relevant to my article and what isn’t but I expected that much.

1 comment:

  1. Travis,

    What jumps out at me as particularly interesting is the point about variations across regions. I think you should pursue that aspect of the research in particular. Not only is it especially interesting, but it also fits the idea of comparative politics as a field of study. One would expect the institutions of the NHS to be common across all of the constituent parts of the UK, so the idea that there are regional differences in the actual practice of the system indicates that there must be something distinct in the different regions.

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