An English Approach to Health Service Planning - with a Regional Perspective

Abstract

The reorganisation of the National Health Service in 1974, created health authorities with much wider responsibilities for the health of the community than simply those of running efficient hospitals. The teaching hospitals were brought under the control of these authorities and the way was open for planning health services for a defined catchment population and for lifetime patient records to care for lifetime problems. However, so far there has been little impetus towards linking together records of separate episodes of patient care.