Public health and health policy Discuss the health problems and health Essay

Public health and health policy Discuss the health problems and health service issues that are associated with homelessness in L - Essay Example In London, the homeless face the problem of insufficient primary and secondary care, in spite of their critical health situations. National Health Service, the primary provider of public health in the UK, cannot provide such essential services to people without access to fixed address, a common feature in developed nations (Daly, 2013, p.213). In addition, Rogers and Pilgrim (2010, p.60) asserts that the homeless are prone to neglecting their health status, more than the general population, and they only seek such services when their health status have reached advanced stages. Homelessness is a complicated global issue that is caused by several issues while at the same time it does not have a single solution. In recent years, the government and global health organisations such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) have identified the complex health challenges affecting the homeless as the underlying problem apart from the obvious accommodation issues amongst others. In England, ther e are several National Health Services and other privately sponsored charitable services, which provide the necessary healthcare and support to the homeless. The civil society in England, noted that during the global downturn, the National Health Services reduced its spending on the homeless. ... Gramlich (2008, p.70) observes that there is not a single specific definition of the term as variance in temporal dimensions, cognition and lifestyle amongst the homelessness street people. Since homelessness is mirrored in different settings, several situations come into play; this paper posits that the political agenda as well as the prevailing social values have been strongly linked to the definitions. Conventionally, homelessness has a residential dimension and this can often be used to redefine the term in this context. This is because the apparent feature of the classification stems from the lack of conventional housing for those deemed homeless. Levy and Sidel (2013, p.176) applies the United Nations Committee on Human Rights definition of the term and they intone that people who sleep in outdoors such as vehicles and abandoned non intended for human dwelling. Legal and statutory definition of the term have a characteristic contradictory nature and in the United Kingdom alone, there are several acts that define the term both at the national level and in the devolved systems. However, housing authorities in the United Kingdom consider domiciled individuals who have applied for their accommodation as homelessness applicants and therefore categorized. In the strictness of the term, the city of London has often distinctly identified two groups; the homeless and the rough sleepers. The rough sleepers are those who live and sleep on the streets of several English cities, yet in our case we shall be confined to London and Newham in particular. The Department of Communities and Local Government (2013) describes a person as statutorily homeless