Department of Health: Greenfield Working Group on Effective Prescribing: Registered...

JA 614

1979-2009

This series contains files regarding the informal Greenfield Working Group on effective prescribing, the Medical Working Group on drug dependence, Prescription Pricing Authority (PPA) policy developments affecting provision of information to General Medical Practitioners (GMPs), Medicines Policy Committee [on] prescribing costs and the economy, the Heriot-Watt study into the value of sending prescribing information to General Practitioners (GPs), Family Practitioner Committees (FPCs) and the White Paper 'Promoting Better Health' (including discussions with the General Medical Services Committee (GMSC) on implementation)

This series is arranged in file reference order (within each transfer).

AMR, DPG and DPR file series

Public Record(s)

English

• Department of Health, 1988-1988
• Department of Health and Social Care, 2018-2018
• Department of Health and Social Security, 1968-1988

420 file(s)

Open unless otherwise stated

From 2019 Department of Health and Social Care

DPG and DPR prefixes noted as in use at the Departmental Record Officer (DRO) census on the 6th February 1990. Both prefixes recorded as closed and renumbered into prefix PRX at DRO audit visit on the 16th January 1998

Series is accruing

The Department of Health was formally created in 1988 through The Transfer of Functions (Health and Social Security) Order. Like many others, the department with responsibility for the nation's health has had different names and included other functions over time. In the 19th century, several bodies were formed for specific consultative duties and dissolved when they were no longer required. There were two incarnations of the Board of Health (in 1805 and 1831) and a General Board of Health (1854 to 1858) that reported directly into the Privy Council. Responsibility for health issues was also at times, and in part, vested in local health boards and, with the emergence of modern local government, with the Local Government Act Office, part of the Home Office. In the early part of the 20th century, medical assistance was provided through National Health Insurance Commissions. The first body, which could be called a department of government was the Ministry of Health, created through the Ministry of Health Act 1919, consolidating under a single authority the medical and public health functions of central government. The co-ordination of local medical services was expanded in connection with emergency and wartime services, from 1935 to 1945, and these developments culminated in the establishment of the NHS in 1948. In 1968, the Ministry of Health was dissolved and its functions transferred (along with those of the similarly dissolved Ministry of Social Security) to the newly created Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS). Twenty years later, these functions were split back into two government departments, forming the Department of Social Security (DSS) and the Department of Health (DH) After the 2018 British cabinet reshuffle, the department was renamed the Department of Health and Social Care.