CLAUSE 8.—(Power to register as Commonwealth or foreign practitioners certain persons in the United Kingdom temporarily for employment in hospitals.) (Hansard, 9 December 1947)

§ Mr. J. Edwards
I beg to move, in page 6, line 29, at the end, to insert: (2) Where a direction for registration under this Section is given, the Council may include therein a direction that the right to registration pursuant thereto shall be subject to payment by the person as to whom the direction is given of such fee as may be therein specified not being greater than the fee for the time being determined by the Council for the registration of persons as Commonwealth practitioners or as foreign practitioners, as the case may be, under Section eleven or twelve of the Medical Act, 1886. Earlier provisions in this Bill in Clause 6 deal with the payment of registration fees to the General Medical Council and are limited to the various, wartime categories covered by Clauses 2, 3 and 4, and the payment of fees is obligatory in all these cases. There did not seem to us to be the same case for an invariable rule as to the payment of fees by distinguished 932 visitors as covered by Clause 8. We think that it would be invidious to say that those who come here for our benefit and not primarily for their own should pay a fee. The case of the post-graduate student is different. More work will be entailed for the General Medical Council in following their movements. They are here for their own advantage, and it seems to us that in such cases a fee may be justified. It has, therefore, been decided to give the General Medical Council power in such cases to charge a fee, not exceeding the present fee, which I believe is £5, and to leave the council free to reduce or to waive the fee if they think fit.

§ Mr. Gallacher
I would like the right hon. and gallant Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) to read and read again this Amendment. When some of the right hon. and gallant Member's Friends make objections because the miners' or other workers' unions demand that those who come into the industry should become members of their union and pay their dues, let them remember what they are passing here tonight and let them sit humble and say nothing.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
Not for the first time the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) totally misconceives the nature and constitution of the General Medical Council, the rules under which it works and the rights which it gives to anyone who is registered upon it. If I were to suggest now or at any other time that the miners' union should be replaced by a body set up by Statute, I should be out of Order and I shall not, therefore, proceed to do so. I would, however, call the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that this is not the British Medical Association we are speaking of, but the General Medical Council, a statutory body, not set up by the medical profession, over which the medical profession have no rights at all. It is set up and controlled by this House.
The second point is that, even so, to be inscribed upon it gives certain limited rights and does not in any way preclude anyone who is not inscribed upon it from practising medicine in any way that he wishes to do. If the hon. Member for West Fife would remember those two things when we are next discussing this question of trade organisation, perhaps he too will sit humble and say nothing.

§ Mr. David Renton (Huntingdon)
The main purpose of the General Medical Council is the protection of the public, a fact which the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) appears to have overlooked—or perhaps he does not care about that.

§ Mr. Somerville Hastings (Barking)
The Clause is designed to permit distinguished physicians and surgeons who come to this country to give demonstrations to those who are interested in new methods of treatment. In that respect it is a most desirable Clause but that is not all. Other doctors come into this country from the uttermost parts of the earth to study our methods and to learn what they can from us. Some of these doctors are exceedingly able people. Some are much less so, and the less able the doctors are the more anxious they are to take home to their own country some ocular demonstration of their ability. If they can carry home with them a certificate that they have acted as house surgeon in a British hospital they will be greatly pleased. They will take home the certificate, have it framed, and hang it up in their consulting rooms, and as 90 per cent. of their patients will not know the difference between surgeon and house surgeon, their patients will be much impressed.
I am afraid of that happening. I realise the desirability of distinguished doctors coming here, but if the smaller fry—if I may put the matter so—some of whom are not as well qualified as doctors who leave the medical schools in this country, are allowed to come and treat cases in our hospitals which they are not permitted to treat outside, it is a bit dangerous. I want to see the Clause tightened up, if possible. Would it not be possible to begin by saying "regulations shall provide" that in the case of a person who comes to this country, etc. It would then be easy for the Minister to make the necessary regulations. Or alternately instead of: for the purpose of employment in a medical capacity these words might be substituted: "For the purpose of demonstration or instruction."
934 I do not want to make myself a nuisance or to make the speech I made on the Second Reading, but I feel that this Clause, while useful, might be to some extent improved because it does leave the general public in hospital at the mercy of people who come over to this country and who are less well qualified and less able to treat disease than those who are qualified in the ordinary way here. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to look at the matter again with the object of review and, if he thinks fit, to tighten up the wording so as not to allow people who come here to learn being a danger to the public.