Health and Medicine - NHS in Kent Today

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICES IN KENT TODAY

Today everybody is entitled to health care when they are ill. Throughout our lives we use the services of the National Health Service. The service does its best to keep us healthy from ‘cradle to grave’. What are your experiences of the health care system?

Use the photographs to think about your experiences. Each section looks at the changing needs of people as they get older.

image: General Practitioner Your local doctor

Everybody has a local doctor who they can
call on when they are unwell.

Make a list of the things that your local doctor
has done for you.

What medicines and equipment does your doctor use ?

Before a baby is born
Regular checks are made by hospital staff and doctors to make sure that unborn babies are healthy and that they are developing properly. Advice is given about what the mother should eat, drink and do during her pregnancy. Eating the wrong foods and smoking can damage the health of unborn babies.

Childbirth
The birth of a child is exciting and complicated. Most babies are born in hospitals where there is plenty of help if it is needed. When babies are born early they can be helped to survive with special care and the use of incubators.

Pre-school checks
Before children go to school they are given injections to protect them from deadly diseases. We often forget that some diseases like measles used to kill thousands of children every year before the use of vaccinations.

Can you remember any of your early visits to see the doctor?

Illness
Sometimes we are ill. We cannot help it and we often cannot avoid it. When we are very ill we have to go into hospital. Today hospitals use transfusions to give us blood, anaesthetics to help us with pain and medicines to stop infections.

Accidents will happen
If we are unlucky we can be involved in an accident. Hospital emergency departments are ready to help the patient as quickly as possible.

Have you ever been to an accident and emergency ward?

What happened while you where there?

Could your accident have been prevented?

Living longer
Many people now live longer. Older people suffer from many more health problems than younger people. Because there are many more older people more attention has to be given to their health and thid puts pressure on the NHS to provide all the health care that people want.

How do older people in your community use the NHS?

As you view this website you will see repeated the "Life" image with some numbers. This tells you the average age that people could expect to live at different times in the past. Today men are living until they are in their mid seventies and women until their late seventies.

How have things changed?

1. From what you know, make a list of what health care in Kent is like now and what it was like in the past.
2. Do any of your experiences of the NHS fit into the scenes described here?
3. In the remainder of this website you will find out how health care and medicine has changed and why the 50th anniversary of the NHS was well worth celebrating.