§ 23. Mr. CASSELasked whether the special Grant-in-Aid for medical benefit will be made in respect of insured persons who after the age of seventy still remain entitled to medical benefit; and, if not 924 from what source will the extra cost of medical benefit in such cases be defrayed?
§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman)The special Grant-in-Aid will be paid in respect of all insured persons entitled to medical benefit irrespective of age.
§ 24. Mr. CASSELasked whether any part of the special Grant - in - Aid for medical benefit under the National Insurance Act will be paid in respect of the first three months after 15th January, 1913, or whether the whole benefits in respect of that period will be provided out of funds under the National Insurance Act?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThe Grants to insurance committees out of the special Grant-in-Aid will go into the same general account as the moneys available under the Act for expenditure on medical benefit after the Grants have been made. Therefore it will be impossible to say whether any particular payment has been made out of moneys available under the Act or cut of the special Grant.
§ Mr. CASSELAre not the Government departing from the answer given me by the Prime Minister on 9th January to the effect that none of this special Grant-in-Aid would be so applied?
§ Mr. MASTERMANIt goes into a common fund. We cannot trace the individual sovereigns that come from the Grant-in-Aid of the National Insurance Fund. There is money to pay the full amount of the contract with the doctors in the insurance fund at present, and this money will be paid into that fund.
§ Mr. CASSELCan the right hon. Gentleman say how the Prime Minister gave me the answer that the special Grant would not be applied?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI am not sure that I can discuss this matter by question and answer. If you give a Grant-in-Aid to a certain fund when that Grant is paid the amounts are amalgamated and you cannot trace the difference between one and the other.
§ 25. Mr. CASSELasked whether it will be possible to ascertain the diseases from which any insured person has suffered or is suffering by comparing the records in the hands of the Insurance Commissioners with those in the hands of the insurance committees; and, if so, how far will such 925 records be kept secret; will privilege from production in any Court of Law be claimed; and has or will any information from such records be supplied to the Treasury or any other Government Department?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThe answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. As I have stated in reply to previous questions, the arrangements for the keeping and furnishing of records secure that information which would connect the name of a patient with an entry as to a particular kind of disease could not be obtained by the Commissioners, the insurance committee, or the society. The particulars of illnesses and certain other particulars (but not anything by which the patient can be identified) will be used for statistical purposes.
§ Mr. CASSELIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that the half of the form, filled up by the doctors containing the disease is sent to the Insurance Commissioners, and the other half containing the name of the patient suffering from the disease is sent to the insurance committees, and that they can be identified together by the numbers which are on them? If I can prove to the right hon. Gentleman that that is the case, will he take steps to see that proper secrecy is preserved?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI am informed that the forms are so arranged that it is quite impossible to identify them even if they were kept together.
§ Mr. CASSELI beg to give notice that I shall raise this question on the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill.
§ 30. Mr. HUNTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that a maidservant in North Shropshire who has filled in her card and chosen her panel doctor there has been taken ill in Ludlow, South Shropshire, and cannot get any doctor to attend her; and can he say how she is to get a doctor for her serious illness?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member for Gravesend on the 28th January.
§ Mr. HUNTIf the servant is kept several days waiting before she can get a doctor to attend her, what is she to do?
§ Mr. MASTERMANImmediately any insured person moves from one area into 926 another, he or she should give notice and a new doctor will be provided at once in the new district.
§ Mr. HUNTIn this case she did give notice at once by applying for a doctor, and she could not get one.
§ Mr. MASTERMANNotice has to be given to the insurance committee. If that has been done, I shall certainly inquire into the matter.
§ 31. Mr. HUNTasked why the panel in the Bridgnorth area of Shropshire was closed from 15th January and is still to be closed for a period of three years?
§ Mr. MASTERMANAs the number of practitioners available for the panel system in the urban and rural areas of Bridgnorth was not adequate for treatment of insured persons, the Commissioners dispensed with the necessity for the adoption of the panel system for the period named, and authorised the insurance committee to make other arrangements under Section 15 (2) of the Act.
§ Mr. HUNTDid not the Prime Minister say that all the panels were to be kept open? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Members of this insurance committee which settled this question were never given notice when this question came on?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThat is not the information at my disposal. This was done by the local insurance committee after a request had been made to the Insurance Commissioners to declare the panel system at an end.
§ 42. Mr. TIMOTHY DAVIESasked the number of insured persons under treatment for tuberculosis in Lincolnshire on 31st January; and will he give the numbers for Lindsey, Kesteven, and Holland separately?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI have inquired of the insurance committees of the districts referred to and will inform the hon. Member of the result of those inquiries.
§ 44. Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked whether the Huddersfield and Bradford Insurance Committees have issued circulars refusing free choice of doctor outside the panels unconditionally and without exception?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI am communicating with the insurance committees concerned, 927 and I will inform the hon. Member of the result.
§ 57. Mr. BUTCHERasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware of the difficulties which friendly societies are experiencing in supplying medical benefits out of their own funds to persons who are over sixty-five, and who are not insured under the National Insurance Act; whether such difficulties have arisen from the fact that in consequence of the passing of the Act the arrangements which the friendly societies have hitherto made for supplying medical benefits to their members have been disturbed, and that it is not now possible for the friendly societies to supply medical benefits to their members at the same cost as they did formerly, and that such cost has been increased by 3s. or 4s. a year; and whether he will state what steps the Government are prepared to take in order to enable friendly societies to provide medical benefits for their members who are over sixty-five and are not insured under the Act?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI am not in a position to say whether or to what extent societies have found it impossible to arrange with the doctors who are receiving a higher remuneration than hitherto for insured persons to continue to treat the small and diminishing number of their own aged and infirm patients who are not insured upon the same or approximately the same terms as before.