The Battle of Grand Gulf was fought on April 29, 1863, during th: The modern-system of universal publicly funded in the United Kingdom has its origins in the creation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1949 which still exists to this day and is the primary healthcare provider in the United Kingdom. The widespread popularity of the NHS has led to it being described as a "national religion".[394][395] Healthcare in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter and each country has its own system of universal publicly funded healthcare, although private healthcare is also available. Public healthcare is provided to all UK permanent residents and is mostly free at the point of need, being paid for from general taxation. The World Health Organization, in 2000, ranked the provision of healthcare in the United Kingdom as fifteenth best in Europe and eighteenth in the world.[396]