The administrative structure of the health and personal social services in Northern Ireland.

  • Northern Ireland
Date:
1969
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The administrative structure of the health and personal social services in Northern Ireland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/40 (page 7)
    Review of the Structure of Health Services The present structure 8. The Ministry of Health and Social Services is responsible for the pro- motion in Northern Ireland of a comprehensive health service, and for provid- ing or securing the effective provision of services in accordance with the pro- visions of the Health Services Acts. The structure of these services in Northern Ireland, as in Great Britain, is broadly described as tripartite. Hospital services are administered on behalf of the Ministry by the Hospitals Authority, and day-to-day management is in the hands of 29 Hospital Management Com- mittees, some of which have Hospital Committees for individual hospitals. General health services are the responsibility of a single General Health Services Board, with which individual practitioners—doctors, dentists, chemists and opticians—have contracts for the provision of services. Personal health services are provided by 6 County and 2 County Borough Councils as health authorities, acting largely through Health Committees. 9. Certain allied local authority functions and services should also be mentioned. Health authorities in Northern Ireland provide the school health service under the Education Acts, which in England and Wales is a function of education departments. Health authorities have also under various enactments public health functions, the chief of which are the control of communicable diseases, the control of food hygiene and composition, and in appropriate cases port health. In addition, county borough, borough, urban district and rural district councils have as sanitary authorities a wide range of environmental health functions which include the abatement of sanitary nuisances, the control of unfit housing, refuse collection, sewage disposal, and the control of air pollution. 10. Considerable sums of money are expended annually on health services £52 million is to be spent on them during the financial year 1969-70 (£34.6 million on the provision of hospital services, £14 million on general health ser- vices, and £3.4 million on local heaith authority services). These figures include capital expenditure of £4.5 million, very largely for hospital building. The health services are also large-scale employers. The present numbers engaged or employed are approximately* as follows: Hospital and specialist services I EZOSTOU Local health services. : i 1,750 General health services . ] - 2,250 24,750 These estimates give an indication of the scale of operation involved, and emphasise the importance of ensuring that the administrative structure is *The figures include some slight duplication—for example, some general practitioners under contract;to the Board also undertake work in hospitals—but the order of magnitude may be taken _as correct.