ROYAL COMMISSION ON NATIONAL HEALTH

INSURANCE.

REPORT.

To THE KING'S MosT EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY,

WE, the undersigned Commissioners appointed under Your
Majesty’s Royal Warrant of the 11th July, 1924,
“ to inquire into the scheme of National Health Insurance
established by the National Health Insurance Acts, 1911-292,
and to report what, if any, alterations, extensions or developments
 should be made in regard to the scope of that scheme
and the administrative, financial and medical arrangements
get up under it’

humbly beg leave to report as follows :—

CHAPTER 1.

INTRODUCTION.

PROCEDURE OF THE COMMISSION.

1. We held our first meeting on the 17th July, 1924, and at
that meeting considered generally our Terms of Reference and
also discussed certain preliminary questions of procedure,
including amongst others that of the expedience of admitting the
Press and the public to those meetings at which witnesses were
to tender evidence and submit to examination. We subsequently
decided that, on a balance of considerations, our work could
probably be discharged with greater efficiency in the absence of
those restraints which the presence of the public might impose
on certain witnesses. In view of the general interest felt in the
questions submitted to us and of the large sections of the population
 who might be directly affected by any conclusions at which
we might arrive, we felt, however, that it was of the utmost
importance that the widest possible publicity should be given to
our proceedings, not merely from the point of view of informing
those immediately concerned, but aiso with the object ‘of
stimulating further evidence whether by way of comment upon
or of criticism of, the evidence which might be tendered to wus.
We accordingly decided that a short summery of the proceedings