Development of Health Care Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Development of Health Care - Assignment Example The British masses willingly bore with the hardships, scarcity and want imposed by the coalition government under Winston Churchill to divert the scarce resources to war efforts. The politicians and the leadership of the times felt a dire need to reward the British working class for its forbearance and sacrifice by ushering in reforms that were to give way to a more egalitarian society (Stevenson 1990). The UK government deputed Sir William Beveridge to draft a report that was to be the basis of a pragmatic policy targeted at helping low-income groups in Britain (Hills, Ditch & Glennerster 1994). The report furnished by Beveridge in December 1942 proposed that all the working age citizens ought to be made to pay a weekly levy. The funds accumulated through the accrual and management of these weekly contributions were to be used by the state to help people who were needy unemployed or retired. Beveridge called for a minimal standard of living that was to be mandatorily extended by the state to all the poor and needy. The Labour government elected in 1945 resorted to the suggestions made by the Beveridge Report to chalk out measures that were to form the basis of a modern welfare state (Hills, Ditch & Glennerster 1994). The concept of a welfare state includes within its ambit the need to resorting to public and statutory measures to extend the agreed upon minimal standards of living to the deprived and marginalized individuals and groups across the society. In an ideal scenario, the objective of any welfare state is to strive to eradicate poverty, to ensure an all-inclusive distribution of resources and national wealth to promote and enhance social cohesion and unity. In consonance with the above-mentioned ideas, the Beveridge exclusively attacked the evils of ill health, lack of education, lack of hygiene, unemployment, and poverty (Hills, Ditch & Glennerster 1994).