THATCHERISM

Thatcherism: Reviewing and Analysing Research Issues

Thatcherism: Reviewing and Analysing Research Issues

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to enlighten and explore the healthcare policy reforms and core concerns revolving Thatcherism. Thatcherism is termed as a political and reform era initiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1979. There were several policy reforms implemented in this era by Margaret Thatcher. In addition, in this era privatisation in the healthcare industry was incepted. According to different sources, the concept of privatisation in the healthcare industry had a prominent influence on the public and community healthcare provision. In addition, some sources argue that the rise of privatisation deteriorated the concept of evidence based care as the healthcare organizations became more profit-oriented rather than being service oriented. The paper will discuss the key concerns regarding the policy reforms brought by Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

Moreover, the paper will also discover the impact of privatisation on NHS, its client groups and workforce. In addition, the influence of privatisation would also be assessed on the entire healthcare industry and its effects would be explored in this paper. Moreover, the paper also discusses the concept of community care and the concept of “rolling back” welfare state. Private management after policy reforms of Thatcherism govern by the criterion of achieving the greatest economic benefit. This is realized by increasing staff working hours, restricting their wages and limiting health care activity and diagnostic tests that raise healthcare process costs. Privatizing of healthcare has significant consequences for the organization that are operating in the healthcare industry along with every other stakeholder that is concerned with the practices of the industry. Nonetheless, privatisation of healthcare industry also influences functioning of health system resources, the quality of care to the citizens and the state of health professionals.

Community Care Origin

Community care represented the care of individuals in the United Kingdom within the community as an alternative to institutional or long-stay residential care. It has its origins in relation to mental illness and the critique of institutionalization in the 1950s which led, in 1963, to the publication of Health and Welfare: the Development of Community Care. Since then, the term has been applied to provision for other groups, such as children and older people. In the 1980s, ideas about community care were developed by governments as a means of providing support for a growing number of needy people. This trend was initiated in 1982 with the publication of social workers. Under the policies and reforms brought by Thatcherism (Bevan, Ham, Plsek, 2008, 89-102). Nonetheless, Thatcherism also recognized need to give support to carers.

A further important dimension of Thatcherism was the philosophy that community care should be provided within the context of welfare pluralism; that is, that “rolling back” the welfare state and local authorities should not be the principle providers of care, rather, community care should be provided by a mixture of local authority, private and voluntary organizations. A number of empirical studies have demonstrated that most caring is undertaken by women, usually daughters and ...