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