A National Health Service : The White Paper proposals in brief
1944 1944 1940s 32 pages Separate practice In this form of practice the general framework of the National Health Insurance scheme will (with important changes from the past) be retained. A doctor in separate practice will engage himself to provide ordinary medical care and treatment to all persons a...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
London : His Majesty's Staionery Office
1944
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/0B581FE4-6B33-4F31-B912-28D91A56C0C3 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/D1DDA9F5-6A5F-4630-8D1A-A7267EAC3882 |
| Summary: | 1944
1944
1940s
32 pages
Separate practice In this form of practice the general framework of the National Health Insurance scheme will (with important changes from the past) be retained. A doctor in separate practice will engage himself to provide ordinary medical care and treatment to all persons and families accepted by him under the new arrangements. He will work from his own consulting-room and with his own equipment, as he does now, but he will be backed by the new organised service of consultants, specialists, hospitals, laboratories and clinics of which he will be enabled and expected to make full use for his patients. There will be no interference with the right of a doctor to go on practising where he is now and at the same time to take part in the new public service in that area. But for the purpose of securing a proper distribution of doctors some regulation of new entrants into any practice will be necessary. A Central Medical Board The Government contemplate that the general practitioner service will, in the main, be centrally organised and that the terms and conditions of service of the doctors taking part in the new scheme will be centrally arranged. As the doctors will be remunerated from public funds, the Minister himself must be ultimately responsible for the central administration. The Minister will, however, appoint a Central Medical Board which, acting under his general direction, will be responsible for much of the administration of the practitioner service. The Secretary of State will appoint a separate Central Medical Board for Scotland. The Board will in each case be the "employer" of the doctors who take part in the new service and it is consequently with the Board that the individual doctor will be in contract, whether he is engaged in separate practice or in group or Health Centre practice. In the case of practice in Health Centres it would be difficult to place on local authorities the duty of providing, maintaining and staffing the Centres and give them no voice in the employment of the doctors who will work there. In this case, therefore, it is proposed that there should be a three-party contract between the Board, the local authority and the doctor. This will mean that a doctor employed in a Health Centre will be appointed by the Board and the local authority jointly, with his terms of service centrally negotiated and settled, and will be liable to have his service in the Centre terminated only by the joint decision of the Board and the local authority (or, if they fail to agree, by the Minister). This arrangement will not be required in Scotland, except where responsibility for maintaining Health Centres is delegated by the Secretary of State to a local authority. The Board will also watch over the general distribution of public medical practice. In separate practice it will be the Board to whom application for consent must be made before a vacant public practice is refilled or a new public practice established — a consent which would be withheld only if there were already enough or too many 8
36/H24/41 |
|---|---|
| Physical Description: | TEXT |