National Service for Health : the Labour Party's post-war policy
1943-04 1943 1940s 24 pages the standpoint of the nation and the individual patient. The service is not nearly as efficient as it should be, within its present limits. For one thing, the training of a medical student is so long and costly that doctors are recruited from too narrow a section of the p...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
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London : Labour Party
April 1943
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/6C867EF8-CDAE-4746-83DE-FB000C37AC78 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/F11F2562-7635-4899-A7F2-C367DB21FA99 |
| Summary: | 1943-04
1943
1940s
24 pages
the standpoint of the nation and the individual patient. The service is not nearly as efficient as it should be, within its present limits. For one thing, the training of a medical student is so long and costly that doctors are recruited from too narrow a section of the population. A full medical education lasts at least five years and costs about £1,500. Scholarships and prizes, and in Scotland the Carnegie Trust, afford some relief, but in effect there is a very stiff entrance fee for this profession, which restricts recruitment to about one-sixth of the population. Here, surely, is a waste of ability which the nation cannot well afford. The accident of wealth should not be allowed to play this decisive part in the selection of doctors. Ability should be the only test. A still more serious weakness is that doctoring is not, and cannot be, allocated in accordance with the real need of the population. Having no fixed salary or pension, doctors naturally tend to congregate where they are likely to make a good income, rather than in those fields where the need for doctoring is greatest. No public authority can now say to the doctor: "You are wanted in Durham or in the Rhondda Valley, rather than in Harley Street." Wealthy private patients can pay the piper; and so to a great extent they can call the tune, even though this results in wasteful distribution of medical services which the whole nation needs to share. THE DOCTOR'S STANDPOINT We have considered the present system of private doctoring from the standpoint of the nation and of the patient. There remains the question : Is the system satisfactory from the doctor's standpoint? There is an increasing recognition in the medical profession that it is very unsatisfactory. The conscientious doctor wants to be able to serve effectively in preventing ill-health ; but he knows, better than any layman, that at present he cannot do this. He cannot even keep in touch adequately with the preventive work of the public health services. The doctor wants to see his patients supplied with whatever kind of treatment they need: but he cannot himself supply that treatment. He wants to spend his skill as a healer on those who most need it, regardless of their capacity to pay ; but, however generous his intention, having no assured income or pension, he is hampered in giving such service. The existing system is not producing nearly enough doctors for the nation's needs, and it makes no provision for the doctor to be "off duty" ; so the general practitioner is apt to be perpetually overworked. That is very bad for him, and also for his patients. There is only one way in which these difficulties can be removed and that is by providing for "teamwork" between doctors, better contact between general practitioners and specialists, and fuller access to all the resources of modern medicine. That leads to the conclusion that, in the doctor's interest as well as that of the patient, there must be well-equipped Health Centres throughout the country as part of a National Service for Health, and that the doctors should be whole-time, salaried officers of that Service. National Health Insurance We come now to the National Health Insurance Scheme, which was provided as a means of mitigating some of the defects of our private medical service which have just been noted. The Scheme applies, broadly speaking, to all persons who work under an employer's direction and whose salary is less than £420 a year (formerly £250). The insured persons are entitled to a certain amount of free doctoring by a specified doctor "on the panel" and to a certain amount of drugs and medical necessities. In addition, insured persons 8
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |