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JC 
MAJORITY REPORT. 
CHAPTER VV 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HEALTH SERVICES. 
55. We propose to devote this chapter to a consideration of 
the medical aspects of the Health Insurance Scheme in their 
relation to the various other health services organised or 
supported by the State which we have described in the preceding 
chapter. For this purpose we have felt justified in assuming 
that the various health services of a public character will con- 
tinue to expand both in their scope and in the range of persons 
to whom they apply; and that while the limitations of finance 
to which we refer in Chapter VI may prevent development in 
the near future, yet, as time passes, these may become less 
restrictive. It also appears to us that we may accept as a 
principle which should govern any such developments, the 
desirability of bringing into closer relationship the various 
services directed towards the prevention of sickness and the 
improvement of health, and that the organisation of the services 
should Le such as to facilitate those developments which from 
time to time may become possible. 
56. Medical benefit has been in operation for 13 years; of the 
other branches of medical service some preceded, others followed 
its introduction. In all these activities we have found, 
speaking broadly and with full consciousness of its limitations, 
such a contribution to the health and well-being of 
the community that we feel sure that a steady expansion in 
these services will mark our future social history. We will first 
devote some space to a consideration of what medical benefit is 
and what its practical results have been, as from the point of view 
of our reference that benefit must occupy the central position in 
a survey of the health services. 
SECTION A.—MEDICAL BENEFIT. 
ScoPE OF MEDICAL BENEFIT. 
57. Medical benefit is defined under Section 10 of the 1924 
Act as ‘‘ medical treatment and attendance,” which ‘‘ includes 
the provision of proper and sufficient medicines and of the 
prescribed medical and surgical appliances, but does not include 
treatment or attendance in respect of a confinement.” 
58. So far as the supply of drugs is concerned, there is, 
subject to a safeguarding provision directed against extravagant 
prescribing, no limit in nature or cost to what the doctor may 
in his discretion prescribe. But as to the service he gives, the 
scope of the benefit has in practice been limited to such treatment 
as may reasonably be regarded as within the competence of