The White Paper - An Analysis
1944-03 1944 1940s 12 pages 9 civilian health services and should be responsible for all civilian health services. This central administrative body should be advised on medical matters, including personnel, by a medical advisory committee representative of the medical profession which should be at...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
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March 1944
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/FA0BC230-7A96-48F5-A0C0-2754A32E6477 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/6C389E9B-5846-4C4E-AF00-4C92EA9116AE |
| Summary: | 1944-03
1944
1940s
12 pages
9 civilian health services and should be responsible for all civilian health services. This central administrative body should be advised on medical matters, including personnel, by a medical advisory committee representative of the medical profession which should be at liberty to publish its findings. Locally, new administrative bodies, responsible to the central authority, should cover wide areas and should be representative, directly or indirectly, of the community served and, in appropriate proportion, of the local medical profession and voluntary hospitals. They should be advised on medical matters, including personnel, by local medical advisory committees representative of the local medical profession which should be at liberty to publish their findings. These administrative changes should be regarded as foundation changes to be agreed before other changes are initiated. WHITE PAPER. 35. The White Paper proposals for administration are illustrated in the following diagram :— MINISTER OF HEALTH CENTRAL HEALTH SERVICES COUNCIL Statutory consultative and advisory body appointed by Minister in consultation with professional and other organisations concerned ; primarily but not wholly medical in constitution. CENTRAL MEDICAL BOARD Executive body, mainly but not wholly professional, its membership and organisation to be settled by Minister in consultation with the profession. Subject to genera! direction of Minister, this body will be the ''employer'' with whom the doctor will contract to provide the new general practitioner service. The Board will concern itself with the distribution and the welfare of general practice. NEW JOINT HEALTH AUTHORITY (combination of county and county borough councils in joint boards) LOCAL HEALTH SERVICES COUNCIL Expert technical advisory body representative of all professional interests, constitution and membership to be settled later. To cover area of Joint Health Authority, which must consult the Council in preparing area plan and in subsequent alterations to it. Council is free to submit its views to Minister, Joint Authority, and individual local authorities. Area to be settled by Minister after consultation with local interests, but to cover a population and financial resources sufficient for adequate hospital service. Membership restricted to elected members of constituent authorities. Functions — to examine general health needs of area, to prepare and submit area plan to Minister in consultation with Local Health Services Council, voluntary hospitals, medical schools and other interests. To provide complete hospital and consultant service for area, including tuberculosis, maternity, mental, infectious diseases, cancer, and probably V.D. The Joint Authority to become owners of all local authority hospitals. Area plan to include proposals as to allocation of responsibility for providing various local services between itself (hospital and consultant services) and constituent authorities (local clinic and domiciliary services not in hospital and consultant sphere). LOCAL COMMITTEES OF THE BOARD To be set up in each area. Membership not dealt with, but these committees will include local authority members. Insurance Committees abolished and their minor day to day functions transferred to these new committees. COUNTY OR COUNTY BOROUGH COUNCIL To be responsible for provision and administration of local clinic and domiciliary services not belonging to hospital and consultant sphere as approved under area plan. To provide, equip and maintain Health Centres as approved under area plan, and to be a party, with the Central Medical Board, to the contract with doctors practising at Health Centres. Central Administration. 36. The proposed service is not comprehensive at the centre, in that the health functions of Government Departments are not concentrated in one Ministry. 37. The proposal for a corporate body is rejected on the following grounds :— (1) Central responsibility must rest with a Minister of the Crown, answerable directly to Parliament and through Parliament to the people. If certain decisions were removed from the jurisdiction of the Minister (and consequently from direct Parliamentary control) there would be need to define with the utmost precision what those decisions were. Clearly they could not include major questions of finance. (2) It would be contrary to the whole historical development of the health services to uproot the present system and to put into the hands of some central authority the direct administration of the new service, transferring to it every institution and every piece of present organisation. (3) Local government authorities responsible for local planning or administration could not reasonably be asked to submit to being overruled by a body not answerable to Parliament. 38. A quasi-corporate body, however, of a civil service character is proposed for specific purposes. As an advisory body to the Minister there is proposed a mainly but not purely medical body appointed by the Minister and not representative of the medical profession in the sense that it is elected by the medical profession. It will not be free to publish its findings but the Minister will include a report of its work —
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |