Report of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance

Bibliographic data

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

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter V. The development of the health services

Collection:: Economics Books

0 MAJORITY REPORT. — already controls most of the health services. We have also considered the statement submitted by the Board of Education on the school medical services; and Sir Thomas Legge of the Home Office has described to us in considerable detail the medical services in the factories. We are told that co-ordina- tion is effectively secured between Departments by consultation and other official machinery (see Brock, Maclachlan and Francis, Q. 24,025-24,196). Similarly, we are told that within the Ministry of Health itself the various branches are maintained in effective relationship (Kinnear, Q. 24,197-24 201). We are glad to be reassured on this point, but we would suggest that, as the various national schemes are advanced along the lines of their natural development, it will be essential to secure at each stage the utmost degree of co-ordination at the centre. 124. Tn the second place there emerges prominently the problem of the multiplicity of the local authorities whose work we have described in Chapter TV. Here again, approaching the question from within our Reference, we have to consider the future of the Insurance Committees, with their related bodies, the Local Medical Committees and the Panel Committees. A full account of the duties of these three groups of bodies is given in Appendix I, Section C, to our Minutes of Evidence. We will turn first to the Insurance Committees. THE INSURANCE COMMITTEES. 125. If, as we think, there is to be a concentration of local health functions in the hands of a single Authority, the powers and duties of the Insurance Committee would naturally pass to that Authority. We have come to the conclusion that a change in this direction may justifiably and conveniently be made in the immediate future, the functions of the Committees being transferred to the appropriate municipal and County Authorities. In view of the importance of this proposal we devote a large section of Chapter XII to its discussion and to a review of the evidence directed to the activities of the Insurance Committees. Here we need only say that though Insurance Committees and their staffs have done their work well, and at the outset some advantage undoubtedly resulted from the attention and energy which specially instituted bodies could devote to the launching of the new scheme, yet owing to a variety of causes, there is not now work of a quality or volume to Justify the continued existence of this separate organisation. That, of course, is not the main argument from the point of view expressed in this Chapter. We would urge unification as the ultimate aim even if the work of Insurance Committees were in fact substantial. But it is not ; and we are thus spared the necessity of advocating on one principle the disappearance of a system which justifies its existence on another.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Report of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation