The National Health Service
1948 1948 1940s 38 pages card. People who do not use their right of joining will, of course, have to pay the doctor's fees until they decide to do so. Everyone is free to change from one doctor to another whenever he or she wishes, and — subject to certain safeguards for patients...
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| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
| Language: | English English |
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London : His Majesty's Stationery Office
1948
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/D6A87542-753F-43B7-9596-32EFC46B283F http://hdl.handle.net/10796/84C94AA4-AA5E-405D-A1D5-8E1CBE31FAB7 |
| Summary: | 1948
1948
1940s
38 pages
card. People who do not use their right of joining will, of course, have to pay the doctor's fees until they decide to do so. Everyone is free to change from one doctor to another whenever he or she wishes, and — subject to certain safeguards for patients under treatment — the doctor has the same right to remove from his list a person he no longer wishes to serve. There must always be a very few people whom for various reasons no doctor wants to accept as patients. These patients can apply to the Executive Council, who will allocate them to a doctor, so that no one will be denied his rights under the Act. The family doctor's main duty is to give his patients 'all proper and necessary treatment' that is within his power. He continues, for instance, to perform such minor operations under anaesthetic as he has carried out in the past, but he is not expected to conduct confinements except under special arrangement, nor to perform services usually given by specialists. On the family doctor's prescription the patient can get, without charge, from the chemist — or, exceptionally, from the doctor himself — any necessary drugs, as well as various appliances, such as bandages, cotton wool, dressings, elastic stockings, finger stalls, ice bags, and so forth. A person who needs to have his eyes tested for the first time in the new Service will obtain a medical recommendation from his doctor and will get in touch with a doctor or optician qualified to test sight and to prescribe spectacles. The family doctor will arrange for the patient every kind of specialist care he is himself unable to give. Except in emergency, hospitals and specialists will not normally accept a patient for advice or treatment unless he has been sent by his family doctor. The family doctor is also required to give the patient such advice or assistance as he may consider appropriate to enable him to take advantage of the local health authority services and maternity medical services. Special local lists have been compiled of doctors with obstetric experience, whom women may choose to give them all necessary medical care ('maternity medical services') during pregnancy, the confinement and the postnatal period. Alternatively a woman may choose her own family doctor, even if he is not on a special list. She should also book a midwife through the Local Health Authority, whose antenatal clinics are available for help and advice. People who need a doctor when away from home can apply to any doctor taking part in the Service for treatment as 'temporary residents'. The doctor when accepting them will ask them to sign a note, which he subsequently uses to claim payment from public funds. These and other duties (such as issuing free certificates for insurance benefits and other statutory purposes, providing adequate surgery and waiting-room accommodation, and generally providing all proper and necessary treatment) are included in the terms of service which are part of the doctor's contract. There are similar provisions in the contracts of 25
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |