:This article is about regional health authorities in the United Kingdom. For Norwegian authorities see ''

Regional health authority (Norway) A regional health authority ( no, Regionalt helseforetak or RHF) is a state enterprise responsible for specialist healthcare in one of four regions of Norway. Responsibilities of the RHFs include patient treatment, education of medical staff, res ...

''. Fourteen regional health authorities were established in England by the

National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973 The National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The purpose of the Act was to reorganise the National Health Service. This was the first time the service had been reorganised since it was e ...

in 1974, replacing the English

regional hospital board In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

s. This reorganisation was planned by the Conservative government of Edward Heath, but survived the General Election 1974. The new Labour government published a paper on ''Democracy in the NHS'' in May 1974 that added local government representatives to the new RHAs and increased their proportion on each

area health authority Area health authorities were 90 bodies responsible for administering the National Health Service, established in England by the National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973 in 1974. Each covered a geographical population which matched a Local Go ...

to a third. They were responsible for strategy, the building programme, staffing matters and the allocation of resources to their 90 subordinate area health authorities. In 1996 the fourteen regional health authorities were abolished by the Health Authorities Act 1995 and replaced by eight regional offices of the

NHS Executive The National Health Service Executive (NHS Executive) was part of the British Department of Health established in 1996. It advised Ministers on the development of NHS policy and was responsible for the effective management of the NHS. The Executive ...

. They were then abolished in their turn by the

Health and Social Care Act 2012 The Health and Social Care Act 2012c 7 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provided for the most extensive reorganisation of the structure of the National Health Service in England to date.''BMJ'', 2011; 342:d408Dr Lansley's Mon ...

. But the delegation of authority to DevoManc was hailed by the editor of the ''

British Medical Journal ''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origi ...

'' as a possible regeneration of RHAs.

References

{{reflist Defunct National Health Service organisations

See also

References