A district health authority was an administrative territorial entity of the National Health Service in England and Wales introduced 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 ...

. District health authorities existed in Britain from 1974 to 1996. Until 1982 there was a tier above them – the

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 ...

. There were 205 when they were established in 1974, but some were later amalgamated. In 1979 there were 199. The districts were a third-tier below the regional health authority and the

(which generally corresponded to

non-metropolitan counties A non-metropolitan county, or colloquially, shire county, is a county-level entity in England that is not a metropolitan county. The counties typically have populations of 300,000 to 1.8 million. The term ''shire county'' is, however, an unoff ...

metropolitan borough A metropolitan borough (or metropolitan district) is a type of districts of England, local government district in England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, metropolitan boroughs are defined in English law as metropolitan distric ...

s or groups of

London borough The London boroughs are the 32 local authority districts that together with the City of London make up the administrative area of Greater London; each is governed by a London borough council. The present London boroughs were all created at ...

s) and the district management teams that ran the hospitals on a day-to-day basis. The most common complaint in evidence about the reorganisation of the NHS made to the

Royal Commission on the National Health Service The Royal Commission on the National Health Service was set up by the Wilson government in 1975. It was to consider the "best use and management of the financial and manpower resources of the NHS". The Royal Commission reported in June 1979, by ...

in 1979 was that it added an extra and unnecessary tier of management. Each district health authority worked alongside a

family health services authority Family practitioner committees were established by the National Health Service Re-organisation Act 1973. They replaced local executive councils which had been established in 1948 to manage primary care. Executive councils were direct descendants ...

, which was responsible for managing primary care services such as general practice, pharmacy and dentistry. The districts were reorganised on a number of occasions in the 1990s. In 1996 new single-tier health authorities replaced districts and areas and the regions were again reorganised. In 2002 health authorities were replaced by

primary care trust Primary care trusts (PCTs) were part of the National Health Service in England from 2001 to 2013. PCTs were largely administrative bodies, responsible for commissioning primary, community and secondary health services from providers. Until 31 May ...

References

{{reflist Defunct National Health Service organisations

See also

References