§ 40. Mr. Messerasked the Minister of Health whether he can give details of the statutory schemes which, in the case of insurance practitioners absent from their practices by reason of war service, abrogate Clause 11 (7) of the Terms of Service scheduled to the Medical Benefit Regulations, 1936, defining the responsibility of practitioners for all the acts and omissions of any practitioners acting as their deputies or assistants; and in what way that provision has been legally abrogated or modified where there is no statutory scheme applicable to an area and the Protection of Practices Scheme exclusively applies?
§ Mr. E. BrownI will send my hon. Friend copies of the provisions applicable to statutory and voluntary schemes which place a practitioner attending an absentee practitioner's patients in the position of a principal in respect of those patients for the purposes of the Medical Benefit Regulations and Terms of Service.
§ Mr. MesserIs the right hon. Gentleman not aware that owing to the widespread call-up of younger practitioners 841 the contract between panel doctors and the insurance committees cannot be continued, and in view of that what will be done when the patient cannot get service?
§ Mr. Rhys DaviesDoes the Minister mean to say that the regulations governing panel practice are being carried out just now?
§ Mr. BrownPerhaps the hon. Member will look at the provisions applicable to the scheme which I will send him.