National Health System in the United Kingdom: History, present situation and a need for reforms?

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2+ (B+), University of Szczecin (Institute for English Studies), language: English, abstract: The time of the Industrial Revolution induced significant changes in Britain. Differentsegments of the daily life were involved such as economy, society, culture, politics orenvironment. Therefore, the following economic expansion was not only an abstract one thataffected machines, industries or finances but also people. On the one hand, Britain wastransformed into a powerful nation and center of global trade, for example due to itsresources, manufactur ing inventions or improved fabrication methods. On the other hand, formany reasons this development was at the expense of the common population. More and morepeople came into the cities in order to find work, which was not so easy since new machinespartly replaced human workforces. During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, manypeople had to face dehumanizing exploitation and long working hours or unemployment andpoverty. Rapid increase of the population even worsened the situation. Numerous completely new problems arose that demanded quick and efficient solutions. Forexample, people started to live in overcrowded slums under disastrous hygieniccircumstances, the growing cities lacked an effective sewage system and the resultingepidemics could no t be resisted, let alone prevented by adequate medical services. [...]