The Health Services White Paper : The Labour Party's policy
1944-09 1944 1940s 22 pages - 16 - The White Paper proposes that the specialists should be based on the hospitals, whose employees they should be for public service purposes. Like the G.P.s they would be free to take private practice - though there would inevitably be much less than at present. Th...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
September 1944
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/E0F87D98-4AC9-40AA-81B9-4D9B95795BE3 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/AC884C94-B9BF-402F-8532-C13956B8B668 |
| Summary: | 1944-09
1944
1940s
22 pages
- 16 - The White Paper proposes that the specialists should be based on the hospitals, whose employees they should be for public service purposes. Like the G.P.s they would be free to take private practice - though there would inevitably be much less than at present. They would be paid by salary for their public work, on nationally agreed conditions, and would be required to visit patients in their own homes when this was medically necessary. Some would be employed by more than one hospital - a sound move to help the problem of distribution. The planning of the specialist and consultant service would be a duty of the joint area authority. The Labour Party supports the White Paper proposals for a specialist and consultant service. It should preferably be staffed by full-time officers. It rejects the suggestion that the specialists should be employed by the Central Medical Board, as likely to lead to still further difficulties in the unification and co-ordination of the health services. The Labour Party supports the proposal for centrally agreed salaries and conditions of service. It considers that, like all other doctors and health workers, all specialists and consultants should enjoy full professional, intellectual, and political freedom. That is, every specialist should be free to publish his professional views and experiences, without having to seek permission from anyone ; he should be free to treat his patients as he thinks fit in the light of his professional knowledge; and he should be free to take any part he wishes to take in political activities. VI. OTHER PARTS OF THE SERVICE EXAMINED 1. Expert advice. The White Paper proposes a statutory Central Health Services Council, to give professional and expert advice on technical subjects to the Minister. The Council will be free to advise the Minister on any subject within its provinces, whether asked to do so or not. The Minister will report annually to Parliament on the Council's work, but the Council will not have the independent right of publication. The Council will be appointed by the Minister, in consultation with the appropriate professional bodies. It may consist of 30 or 40 members - mainly medical - representing the main professional organisations, the voluntary and municipal hospitals (medical and lay representatives), medical teaching, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, midwifery etc. The medical profession is attacking these proposals on two scores: First, it is said that if this Advisory Council is to represent the appropriate professional bodies, the representatives should be elected by those bodies and not appointed by the Minister. Secondly, it is said that the Council should be able to make known to the public in general and the professions concerned the advice it has offered to the Minister. It is pointed out that in the past the standing advisory committees of the Ministry of Health have been a dismal failure, precisely because they have been muzzled by Ministers who did not wish to listen to them. Moreover, if the Council offers interested or partisan advice to the Minister, it will be quickly detected if it is published, and his hand will be strengthened in rejecting it.
292/847/3/166 |
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |