A graduate’s guide to the NHS, trusts and professional bodies

• Department of Health: The Department is responsible for working with health authorities, hospital trusts, GPs and other NHS organisations to deliver government policies and meet its standards of patient care.
• Special Health Authorities: These are health authorities which provide a health service to the whole of England, not just to a local community.
• Strategic Health Authorities: They manage the NHS locally to ensure the delivery of improvements in health services by Primary Care Trusts and NHS Trusts and are a key link between the Department of Health and the NHS.
• Primary care: This is your first port of call when you have a health problem, for example your doctor, dentist, optician or pharmacist. It also includes NHS Walk-in Centres. These are managed by local health organisations called Primary Care Trusts. 
• Primary Care Trusts (PCTs): They work with local authorities and other agencies to manage and improve health services in the local area. PCTs are at the centre of the NHS and have 75% of the NHS budget.
• Secondary care: If a health problem cannot be sorted out through primary care, or there is an emergency, the next stop is hospital. NHS hospitals provide acute and specialist services, treating conditions which normally cannot be dealt with by primary care specialists. Primary Care Trusts are responsible for planning secondary care. 
• Care Trusts: Care Trusts are organisations that work in both health and social care. They are set up when the NHS and local authorities agree that a closer relationship between health and social care is needed. 
• Mental Health Trusts: Mental health services can be provided through your GP, other primary care services, or through more specialist care by mental health services in NHS hospital trusts or local council social services departments. 
• NHS Trusts: NHS Trusts are responsible for providing high quality healthcare services and managing hospitals. They work with Strategic Health Authorities, PCTs, local authorities and others to meet the healthcare needs of their communities. 
• Ambulance Trusts: There are 33 ambulance services covering England, which provide emergency access to healthcare.
• NHS in Scotland The Scottish health system consists of health boards and NHS Trusts and is managed by the Scottish Executive Health Department. 
• NHS in Wales: The Welsh Assembly is responsible for policy and funding for the NHS in Wales. There are also Local Health Boards (LHBs), which assess health services for their communities and work together with the local authorities in Wales to cover the same areas. 
• NHS in Northern Ireland: The health services are run by health and social services boards and health and social services trusts. The boards are responsible for identifying the healthcare needs of the people in their area and the trusts manage the hospital services, health centres and clinics.

Professional organisations and unions

• Health Professions Council
• The Nursing and Midwifery Council
• The Royal College of Nursing

Government departments and agencies

• British Global and Travel Health Association
• NHS Scotland
  
• The Northern Ireland Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety
• NHS Choices
  

Area specific organisations

• Association for Palliative Medicine
• Association of Respiratory Nurse Specialists
• British Anaesthetic and Recovery Nurses Association
• British Association of Critical Care Nurses
• Community and District Nursing Association
• International Society of Nurses in Cancer Care
• Neonatal Nurses Association
• Congenital Cardiac Nurses Association
• Royal College of Radiologists
• Scottish Radiological Society