1st Edition
Fairness in the NHS Towards a Fairer Future for the National Health Service
This book is for everyone who is concerned about the successful future of a very special institution – the National Health Service (NHS). It provides the reader with an overview of the complexity of healthcare delivery, and the crucial influence that fairness should have on healthcare planning. The National Health Service Act was approved by Clement Attlee’s Labour Government on July 5th, 1948. It was created in a great post-war spirit of community with the aim of providing free care at point of need for everyone, rich or poor. Yet right from the start the NHS has faced issues in tackling the challenges that arise in trying to be fair, and of how greater equity in healthcare can be achieved.
The focus is on issues of fairness and equity in healthcare in the NHS, what fairness and equity mean both generally and in the organisational context. It begins with chapters on the inequalities that exist in UK healthcare delivery today. Then a series of chapters focus on different elements of fairness in healthcare: governance, policy, and leadership; finance and financing; healthcare delivery; the key behaviours required of those working in the NHS and importantly, the patient perspectives.
The conclusions and recommendations will be of great interest to health and social care practice staff, health and social care managers and leaders, politicians and policy makers, health and social care specialists, operational managers within the system, NHS boards and healthcare governors, integrated care providers, primary, continuity and specialist providers, and charities in the healthcare sector. It will also be of interest to academics and others involved in training, research & development, students studying health, social care, and management and to the wider public: to everyone who is concerned about the successful future of a very special institution – the National Health Service.
PREFACE Gay Haskins and Mike Thomas: The History of the NHS: a Chronology of UK Health, Social Care and Equity Policies, Statutory Legislation and Regulatory Requirements 1940 - 2024, PART ONE: HEALTH CARE FOR ALL? 1. Our Unequal Health, What Now and Where Next? Sakthi Karunanithi, 2. Fairness in the NHS: Some Ethical Pointers Ian Gregory, PART TWO: GOVERNANCE AND LEADERSHIP, 3. Fairness in Boards and Governance Andrew Corbett Nolan, 4. Fairness in Governance in the NHS Ann Highton, 5. Fairness and Finance in the NHS Mike Thomas, 6. Fairness and Organisational Leadership in the NHS Aaron Cummins and Mike Thomas, PART THREE: POLICY AND SKILLS, 7. Questions of Fairness in Health and Social Care Policy Decisions: A Socratic Approach Anthony Culyer, 8. Faith, Spirituality and the Concept of Fairness Ian Dewar and Deborah Wilde, PART FOUR: ACCESS, EQUITY AND FAIRNESS OF DELIVERY, 9. Contemporary Specialist Provision: Access, Equity and Fairness of Delivery in the NHS Mike Thomas, 10. Fairness in the NHS: Patient and Employee Perspectives 2023 Clare Murray, PART FIVE: CONCLUSIONS, 11. Fairness in the NHS Gay Haskins and Mike Thomas
Biography
Mike Thomas is the Chair of University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, Chair of the Lancashire and South Cumbria Provider Collaborative Board, and Chair of the mental health and learning disability charity, Making Space.
Gay Haskins is former Dean of Executive Education of London Business School and Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and co-author, with Mike Thomas and Lalit Johri of Kindness in Leadership, Routledge, 2018.
"’Fairness in the NHS’" should be at the top of the reading list of anyone interested in transforming the NHS to meet society's changing needs while staying true to its founding principles. It makes the case that tackling inequalities makes sense...not only ethically, but practically and financially. It reminds us that the values of fairness and kindness are the bedrock of caring.” David Fillingham CBE, Chair of the NHS National Improvement Board
“A timely, incisive review of the future direction of the NHS. Refreshingly, the final chapter offers concise conclusions and makes recommendations regarding the future of the NHS. This is essential reading for policymakers, health workers, and millions of individuals who rely on NHS for their care.” Emeritus Professor Ruth Ashford, Chief Examiner, Chartered Institute of Marketing; former Pro Vice Chancellor, Manchester Metropolitan University
