National Service for Health : the Labour Party's post-war policy
1943-04 1943 1940s 24 pages can qualify for receipt of financial assistance during a period of incapacity. The Scheme entitles the doctor to a capitation fee for each person registered as being on his panel. The Scheme has done a good deal to mitigate the defects of the old, wholly unorganised, medi...
| 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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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/1A45F5A1-8362-44F1-AB17-2A06CD856951 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/86799B10-6ADB-4833-8DEB-D4480FDBBC80 |
| Summary: | 1943-04
1943
1940s
24 pages
can qualify for receipt of financial assistance during a period of incapacity. The Scheme entitles the doctor to a capitation fee for each person registered as being on his panel. The Scheme has done a good deal to mitigate the defects of the old, wholly unorganised, medical system. (a) It is not designed, however, for the prevention of ill-health but only for its cure. A doctor, when in panel practice, is in no better position for preventing ill-health than he is when acting as a private family doctor. (b) The Scheme does not provide a comprehensive service, covering all kinds of treatment that may be needed. What is demanded of the panel doctor himself is no more than the elementary standard of doctoring which any and every general practitioner can provide. Patients often complain that the panel doctor's attention is perfunctory. This would not be surprising, for the panel doctor is not employed full time on this part of his practice, and he can hardly help feeling the pull of other, more lucrative, employment. A very important deficiency in the service is that it does not entitle the insured person to hospital treatment, or to the service of specialists. (c) The Panel Service, by its nature, is not open to all. It does not include the higher-paid, salaried worker, nor those who work on their own account, nor the dependents of those insured. More than half of the population is not covered by the Scheme ; and, as we have indicated, even those who are included are not fully provided for. (d) A further defect of the Panel System is that it does not provide sufficient guarantee for the efficiency of the doctors employed. A fact too little realised is that practices are bought and sold by doctors, and that anyone can buy a practice if he has a minimum qualification, and if he possesses, or can borrow, the requisite capital. The general public lacks the knowledge for appraising the quality of his service and his efficiency is not in fact subject to any adequate public control. If he has a manner which ingratiates him with his clients, he can retain and even increase his practice, even though his technical competence may be very low. (e) Lastly, the scheme bears hardly on the doctor who desires freedom from financial anxiety coupled with freedom to do the best work of which he is capable. He cannot speak freely, bluntly, as a healer, or as a guardian of good health, if he has always to be thinking of pleasing enough patients to swell the list on his panel. In short, the National Insurance System, for all its merits, does not meet more than a section of the nation's need. Hospitals The nation's hospital system is a curious medley. It includes some 2,000 public hospitals and some 1,000 so-called "voluntary" hospitals of various types. The public institutions are under the control of Local Authorities, democratically elected ; the voluntary hospitals are responsible only to their own individual governing bodies. The public hospitals are paid for almost entirely out of rates and taxes, whereas the voluntary hospitals finance themselves as best they can by private endowment, by appeals to private charity, and by payments for services rendered. All the medical schools in the country (except one) have grown up in association with some large voluntary hospital. It is in these hospitals that a large part of the nation's medical research work is done : (1) The Voluntary Hospitals have rendered great service, and have been maintained by devoted effort, much of it unpaid. Much of the medical work in these hospitals 9
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |