Report of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1740277147

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-132094

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stationery Office

Year of publication:: 1926

Scope:: XII, 394 S.

Digitisation:: 2020

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XII. Consideration of certain major problems

Collection:: Economics Books

MAJORITY REPORT. 1GC _ —— tion of sending the prescriptions to the bureaux and, on their return, making out the cheques. COMPLAINTS. 385. The procedure for dealing with complaints does raise matters of some moment. A judicial function has to be per- formed and members of the Committees are called upon to take their part in this. As a complaint may lead to the institution cf a Court of Inquiry by the Minister and the finding of that Court may involve the removal of a doctor or chemist from the panel 1t 1s obvious that important issues are involved. Indeed it is in this part of the work that we find the only really substantial element in the Insurance Committee's work. We refer to para- graphs 40-49 of Appendix I, Section C, for a description of the procedure for dealing with complaints, and to paragraphs 55-56 of the same Appendix for an account of the procedure for removing practitioners or chemists from the lists. _ 386. The problem of complaints is, as we have said, Important in character. If it were large in volume there might be some justification for continuing the Insurance = Committees on this score. But it is not large in volume. In the evidence of Mr. Brock we find (Q. 1070) that the total number of complaints against insurance practitioners which have been investigated by the Medical Service Sub- Committees of the Insurance Committees between 1st April, 1920, and 31st October, 1924, was 1,819 for England and Wales. Of the 1,819, 735 resulted in the doctor being acquitted or the case not substantiated. Bul taking the total, the number of complaints against doctors per Committee per year is rather less than 3. Even when the complaints against chemists are added (and they are, we understand, equally insignificant in number) It cannot be said that there is here justification for a specially constituted body. We have to bear in mind that the inquiry 1S not made in the first instance by the Insurance Committee Itself but by a specially set up Sub-Committee which reports to the Insurance Committee. Such an investigating committee could, we think, equally well be set up by the Local Authority. 387. Of course, the number of cases of complaints dealt with by an Insurance Committee, though small on the average, may be substantial in the larger urban areas. In London, for example, the number of cases against practitioners dealt with in 1923 was 104 and about 40 cases against chemists arose in the four years 1920-1924. (London Insurance Committee App. XCVIII, 31, 48.) The Medical Service Sub-Committee is in this case, No doubt, kept fairly busy. But such a Committee could equally Well be appointed by and report to the general Local Authority.

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