§ 17. Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what are the duties of the eminent doctors to whom he pays £5,000 a year; whether they demanded or were offered such fees; and how many other civilian doctors are employed at higher than the rate of pay for naval doctors?
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara)The duties of five of the consultants, at a salary of £5,000, are to perform surgical, medical, or research work at the Naval Hospitals to which they are appointed and where they reside, and to visit for operative or consultative work any of the Naval Hospitals or civil hospitals taking naval patients, in any part of England. The sixth consultant performs similar duties 1244 for the whole of Scotland. They were offered the fees paid, and did not demand them. Other civilian doctors employed on special terms and not at naval rates are one junior consulting surgeon, at £1,500 per annum, who is acting as operating surgeon in the hospital ship at the Dardanelles and consulting surgeon for all ships and naval hospitals in the Mediterranean; and two anaesthetists, at £1,000 per annum, one doing daily duty at Haslar and one at Chatham hospitals. Both of these gentlemen are also sent anywhere in England or Scotland where their services may be required.
§ Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSIs it not an entirely new departure for the Admiralty to employ medical consultants?
§ Dr. MACNAMARAIt was arranged generally in 1908, that in the event of this country being engaged in war, this scheme and the appointment of consultants on these lines, though not at these salaries—they were fixed afterwards—should be undertaken.