Healthcare and Its Impact on Nurses: The United States vs. the United Kingdom

Currently, in the United States, the topic of healthcare reform is in the back of everyone’s mind. What will come of our healthcare system? Will the cost of healthcare decrease? Will patients have better access to care? With this Capstone Experience/Thesis, I wanted to explore the differences between the current healthcare system that we have in the United States, to the nearly seventy-year-old National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom, which provides healthcare to all. The NHS is free at the point of care and is funded by taxation. To understand if such a system would work in the United States, this paper will explore the history of nursing and healthcare along with the similarities and differences in the education and the practice of professional nursing in both countries. With the knowledge gained, I found that if the United States were to adopt a universal healthcare system like the NHS in the United Kingdom, many aspects of the profession of nursing, including education and salary, would change. However, this adoption might mean that all United States citizens have equal access to the best healthcare to help improve health outcomes in our country