National Service for Health : the Labour Party's post-war policy
1943-04 1943 1940s 24 pages other Government Departments, and great unofficial services such as the voluntary hospitals, the insurance companies, and all the doctors in private practice remain outside its control. The Ministry has some measure of jurisdiction over some of the hospitals, but not all....
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
London : Labour Party
April 1943
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/89496500-DE76-44AA-8C5D-DEC4C85454BC http://hdl.handle.net/10796/1235B90D-72A2-4C46-A72B-1EE60E5DC33F |
| Summary: | 1943-04
1943
1940s
24 pages
other Government Departments, and great unofficial services such as the voluntary hospitals, the insurance companies, and all the doctors in private practice remain outside its control. The Ministry has some measure of jurisdiction over some of the hospitals, but not all. This jurisdiction includes the special hospitals for infectious diseases, and the Poor Law infirmaries. The jurisdiction does not extend to the "voluntary" hospitals, which number about a third of the total.* The Ministry controls maternity and child-welfare, supervision of midwives, welfare of the blind. The School Medical Service is under the Board of Education, but with a Medical Officer common to both. The Ministry of Health deals with housing, sanitation, water supply, river pollution, atmospheric pollution, and the regulation of food and drugs** ; but poisons are dealt with by the Home Office. The Medical Service in Factories is now the business of the Ministry of Labour, but Factory Inspectors are under the Home Office. Health in Mines comes under the Mines Department, Health in Shops under the Board of Trade, and Health in Prisons under the Home Office. The mental health services and the care of mental defectives are under the Board of Control. Evidently, then, the direction of the nation's Health Services is very divided. It is the result of a succession of legislative patches and does not make up a comprehensive plan. It would be a mistake to assume that a system so evolved must work badly, or that it would necessarily work better if tidied up by a logically-minded theorist. But, in fact, the system does work very imperfectly, even without the added difficulties which war-time imposes. It often works very inconveniently for the patient. It does not allow the Ministry of Health to exercise a control wide enough to ensure an energetic, comprehensive, National Service for Health. The Ministry cannot make a rational plan for the economical use of the nation's hospital service ; it cannot adequately provide for a service of specialists to poor patients; it cannot ensure that the doctor's service is expended where the need is greatest, since the Ministry's control does not cover the doctor in private practice, and the doctors are largely dependent for their income upon paying patients. Above all, the Ministry, with so patchy a control, cannot do nearly enough to build up preventative medical services and to carry through a positive health policy based on a scientific assessment of the health requirements of the nation as a whole. The Family Doctor Turn now from the centre of our health defences, the Ministry of Health, to the front line of those defences — the family doctor, who receives fees from his patients. The system has rendered great service to the nation's health, and the family doctor often serves as friend and adviser as well as general physician. Undoubtedly we shall continue to need a system of doctoring which preserves this relationship of confidence between the individual doctor and the patient. The system as at present organised, however, is becoming increasingly unsatisfactory from the standpoint of the nation, of the patient, and of the doctor himself. * For the development of special control over hospital accommodation during the war, see page 10. ** Under war conditions the responsibility regarding food has largely passed to the Ministry of Food.
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |