Secretary of State for Health is a UK cabinet position responsible for the Department of Health. Since devolution in 1999, the position holder's responsibility for the health service is mainly restricted to England, with the holder's counterparts in Scotland and Wales responsible for the NHS in those countries. Prior to devolution the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales had those respective responsibilities but the Department of Health had a larger role than now in the co-ordination of health policy across Great Britain. Health services in Northern Ireland have always had separate arrangements from the rest of the UK, and are currently the responsibility of the Health Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive.
The first Boards of Health were created by Orders in Council dated 21 June 14 November, and 21 November 1831. In 1848 a General Board of Health was created with the First Commissioner of Woods and Forests as its President. In 1854 this Board was reconstituted and the President appointed separately. However, the Board was abolished and its duties transferred the Privy Council by the Public Health Act 1858. From 1871 the Health powers were moved to the President of the Local Government Board.
The Ministry of Health was created in 1919 as a reconstruction of the Local Government Board. Local government functions were eventually transferred to the Minister of Housing and Local Government, leaving the Health Ministry in charge of Health proper.
From 1968 it was amalgamated with the Ministry of Social Security under the Secretary of State for Social Services, until a demerger of the Department of Health and Social Security on 25 July 1988.
Read more about Secretary Of State For Health: List of Ministers
Famous quotes containing the words secretary of state, secretary of, secretary, state and/or health:
“The truth is, the whole administration under Roosevelt was demoralized by the system of dealing directly with subordinates. It was obviated in the State Department and the War Department under [Secretary of State Elihu] Root and me [Taft was the Secretary of War], because we simply ignored the interference and went on as we chose.... The subordinates gained nothing by his assumption of authority, but it was not so in the other departments.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“The truth is, the whole administration under Roosevelt was demoralized by the system of dealing directly with subordinates. It was obviated in the State Department and the War Department under [Secretary of State Elihu] Root and me [Taft was the Secretary of War], because we simply ignored the interference and went on as we chose.... The subordinates gained nothing by his assumption of authority, but it was not so in the other departments.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“... the wife of an executive would be a better wife had she been a secretary first. As a secretary, you learn to adjust to the boss’s moods. Many marriages would be happier if the wife would do that.”
—Anne Bogan, U.S. executive secretary. As quoted in Working, book 1, by Studs Terkel (1973)
“Alexander Woollcott broadcasts the story of the wife who returned a dog to the Seeing Eye with this note attached: “I am sending the dog back. My husband used to depend on me. Now he is independent, and I never know where he is.””
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Woman ... cannot be content with health and agility: she must make exorbitant efforts to appear something that never could exist without a diligent perversion of nature. Is it too much to ask that women be spared the daily struggle for superhuman beauty in order to offer it to the caresses of a subhumanly ugly mate?”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)