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
