National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973

In July 1968, the Minister of Health, Kenneth Robinson, published a green paper, Administrative structure of the medical and related services in England and Wales. It proposed creating about 50 single-tier area boards taking responsibility for all health functions in each local government area. It triggered years of debate about the relationship between the NHS, local authorities, and health and social care. In September 1968, the separate ministries of health and of social care merged to form the Department of Health and Social Security. ==Effects==

The act ended the 1948 tripartite system of separate provision of hospital services under regional hospital boards, hospital management committees and boards of governors; family practitioner services under executive councils; and community health services (including health visiting, maternity services, vaccination and ambulance services) under local authorities. These organisations were replaced by one unitary structure of 90 area health authorities (AHAs) answering to 14 regional health authorities (RHAs) and, ultimately, to the Secretary of State for Social Services. AHAs were matched to local authority boundaries. Each AHA district centred on a district general hospital, with some AHAs multi-district and some single district. The act was introduced by a Conservative administration which had been in power since 1970. The Labour party returned to power in 1974 and implemented the planned reorganization of the health service. The incoming Labour government of 1974 published a paper on Democracy in the NHS in May that added local government representatives to the new RHAs and increased their proportion on each AHA to a third. ==Subsequent reorganisations==

A Royal Commission on the National Health Service published its report in 1979. It heard complaints that AHAs added an extra and unnecessary tier of management. In 1982, the AHAs were replaced by 192 district health authorities (DHAs) under the Health Services Act 1980, but the RHAs remained. Initially, there were 14 RHAs, but they were reduced in number to 8 in 1994. Both DHAs and RHAs were abolished altogether in 1996 and replaced by eight regional offices of the NHS Executive as a result of the Health Authorities Act 1995. ==See also==