Unit 1 Business Environment

NHS- The Business Environment

5th of July 1948, Health Secretary Aneurin Bevan launched the NHS. This was the first time in the history of the UK that health care was free. In the view of time itself the NHS has not been going very long at all but in 65 years medical knowledge and treatments have grown astronomically and have caused many diseases and illness’s to be totally eradicated. What the NHS has achieved in 65 years is incredible and with technology advancing all the time it is endless possibilities when it comes to curing patients.

The NHS is a public sector business meaning it is funded by the government. The people of the UK pay taxes in which money is put into the NHS to provide a service. This means that the NHS is also operating in the tertiary sector as it provides a service to customers – medical care.

This therefore clearly defines the product and service of the NHS. To help recover ill patients without any medical fee’s. Its product is the equipment and treatments the NHS offer, it is a well known fact the NHS offers some of the best medical care in the world without the worry of having to pay huge medical fee’s after treatments and operations. The NHS offers many business services as in treatments but also in its aftercare to all customers. The NHS attempts to get patients seen to and dealt with as fast as they can give the best service. However budget cuts have meant service isn’t always the best and a visit to A&E can take a good few hours out of the day. The treatments they offer mean that they are by far the best health service in the UK. There are of course other businesses working in the same sector that provide the same service however this is a very small percentage of private medical care which is probably a lot faster and perhaps a better service than the NHS by the smallest margin, but however it comes at usually quite a large fee and so this is why the NHS is a large company with a monopoly of the market due to the fact it...