HC Deb 08 May 1913 vol 52 cc2202-4
13. Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSON

asked whether the assistants of doctors on the London Insurance Committee panel are responsible to anyone but their medical employers; and whether all such assistants are themselves on the panel?

Mr. MASTERMAN

Under the Regulations it is open to any duly qualified assistant to place his name on the panel, and if he joins the panel he is directly responsible to the insurance committee. If he does not join the panel he can only treat insured persons on behalf of his principal when the latter is precluded by urgency of other professional duties, absence from home, or other reasonable cause from giving personal attendance to the insured persons under his care; and in these exceptional cases his principal is responsible for him to the insurance committee.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON

Does the right hon. Gentleman think it was quite fair of him when he spoke in the House last week to suppress the information that those partners have got private practice, and, further, was not the number on the list issued by the London Insurance Committee, therefore, a gross misstatement of the number of people they have to attend?

Mr. MASTERMAN

I am not aware of any attempt last week or at any other time to suppress information which ought to have been given to the House. The hon. Gentleman stated that those doctors have over 5,000 insured persons on the list. I said it was untrue.

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON

Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire how many persons those doctors and their partners have in fact to attend to?

Mr. MASTERMAN

That has nothing to do with me, and nothing to do with the Insurance Act. I should regard such an inquiry as an impertinence, and I think they too would regard it so.

Mr. LAWSON

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is intended to make this system of taking on assistants who take independent practice a permanent part of the system of working the Insurance Act?

Mr. MASTERMAN

I do not quite know what the hon. Gentleman means. If an assistant is on the panel, the Act and the Regulations give him the right to take patients, and I cannot alter that.

Mr. LAWSON

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, with reference to those who are not on the panel, whether it is intended to keep them as a permanent part in the working of the Act?

Mr. MASTERMAN

Those not on the panel can only treat insured persons on behalf of their principals when the latter are themselves precluded from carrying out their professional duties by urgent reasons.

Mr. FREDERICKHALL (Dulwich)

May I ask whether the House is to understand that the right hon. Gentleman does not consider it is important for him or the Insurance Commissioners to know whether these doctors have in addition to 6,000 insured patients a large number of other patients on the list, and whether he does not think——

Mr. SPEAKER

That seems to me to be argumentative.