A Royal Commission on the National Health Service was established in 1975 and published its report in July 1979.
It heard complaints that the AHAs created under the National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973 added an extra and unnecessary tier of management.
[3] The 'Patients First' consultation document was published in December 1979 which largely agreed with recommendations made by the Royal Commission to reduce the number of administrative tiers.
[1] In 1982, the 90 AHAs were abolished and replaced by 192 DHAs under the Health Services Act 1980, but the RHAs remained.
[1] DHAs were established centred on district hospitals, and not necessarily aligned to local authority boundaries as the 90 AHAs had been.