MAJORITY REPORT. 
ve) 
moderate means, because it is one to which we have felt it 
necessary to have regard in a later chapter of our Report. 
Tae VALUE oF MEDICAL BENEFIT. 
67. We come now to the question of the value of medical 
benefit within the limitation we have just discussed. Such as it 
is, it has been available for 13 years. It is now provided 
for about 15 million people and costs the Insurance Funds 
about £9% millions a year, of which about £7} millions 
goes to the doctors and nearly £2 millions on the provision 
of drugs and appliances. We are told that the number 
of persons attended in a year may be taken at roughly 
73 millions, the attendances at 52 millions, and the number 
of prescriptions at between 40 and 50 millions. This 
service is provided by nearly 15,000 doctors and over 10,000 
chemists. These figures sufficiently indicate the enormous volume 
of the work under the State scheme initiated in 1912, and the 
social results may, we think, be inferred. The benefit indeed has 
set up a ‘‘ new model’ in medical provision for the workers, 
with which the club practices and Friendly Society arrangements 
of pre-insurance days are scarcely comparable either in extent or 
quality. 
68. As to the quality of the insurance medical service we will 
restrict ourselves to a citation of some representative extracts from 
the evidence, prefacing these quotations with the remark that 
the general acceptance of the system during the last 13 years, 
the absence of any substantial volume of criticism of it apart from 
the question of scope already referred to, and the wide demand 
for its extension, are in themselves evidence of a favourable kind. 
Independent Order of Oddfellows (Manchester Unity).—* The 
present system of providing medical benefit through panel practi- 
tioners should be continued *’ (App. VII, 59). 
Independent Order of Rechabites.—'‘ It can almost un- 
reservedly be said that our relations with the medical profession 
have been most cordial, and recorded cases of complaint have 
been very few indeed ’ (App. VIII, 25). ‘° The present panel 
service deserves more commendation than it sometimes gets” 
(Q. 4130). 
Mr. Alban Gordon.— ‘I am not prepared to contend that it 
(the Insurance Medical Service) does not possess as high a 
standard of efficiency as can reasonably be expected within the 
bounds at present set ’’ (App. XIII, 32). 
The Coventry Insurance Committee.—‘* The general practi- 
tioner service is adequate, and the Committee have only dealt 
with 15 complaints against doctors since 1912. Tt is believed that 
the dispensing service is adequate and popular—practically no