Introduction
NHS Wales is the publically funded National Health Service of Wales providing healthcare to some 3 million people who live in the country. The NHS has a key principle which is that good healthcare should be available to all, regardless of wealth.

If you are looking for information from a patient's perspective then NHS Direct Wales is a health advice and information service available 24 hours a day, every day.

Health in Wales is the website of National Health Service (NHS) Wales, and brings together information sources about health services and the health and wellbeing of the population of Wales.

NHS Wales provides services ranging from smoking cessation, antenatal screening, and routine treatments for coughs and colds to open heart surgery, accident and emergency treatment and end-of-life care.

Setting health policy for the NHS in Wales and the funding for health services is the responsibility of the Welsh Government.

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Content in this section was created by National Leadership and Innovation Agency for Healthcare.

Aneurin Bevan - Founding father of the NHSThe NHS was established on the 5th of July 1948. Its founding father and chief architect was the Minister of Health and Welshman Aneurin Bevan.

Before the NHS was set up healthcare was provided on a piecemeal and patchwork basis with many people having to pay directly for primary and hospital care services and others not receiving the services they needed.

The NHS was to be funded out of general taxation and was to be based on the following principles:

- Free at the point of delivery
- Comprehensive
- Equity
- Equality

Aim
The aim of the NHS was to promote:

"The establishment of a comprehensive health service designed to secure improvement in the physical and mental health of the people of England and Wales and the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness” (1946 NHS Act).

Values
The values which underpinned the establishment of the NHS still hold true today but the founders of the NHS could not have anticipated the pressures which would be placed on the system over more than 50 years. Advances in technology, a growing elderly population, increased expectations and knowledge have all increased the demands for health care which have to be met out of a limited budget.