- (1) If any person who has been employed as a female nurse by any organisation not carried on for profit and not provided by a local or public authority—
- (a) enters the employment of a local authority as a nurse from the employment of that organisation; or
- (b) having so entered the employment of a local authority before the passing of this Act but since the commencement of the National Health Service Act, 1946, or, in Scotland, since the commencement of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1947, is at the passing of this Act in the employment of a local authority as a nurse,
- and her service in the employment of that and any other such organisation is not otherwise reckonable as service for the purposes of the principal Act, or, if the authority is a local Act authority, for the purposes of the local Act scheme, that service shall be deemed to be service rendered to a local authority for the purpose of determining whether the nurse is entitled to become a contributory employee or a local Act contributor or to receive a benefit under section eight of the principal Act or under the superannuation regulations or, as the case may be, under the local Act scheme, but for no other purpose.
- (2) In this section the expression "nurse" includes a midwife and a health visitor.—[Sir H. Lucas-Tooth.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth)I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
In order to discharge their functions under the National Health Service Act, 1946, and the corresponding Act for Scotland, local health authorities may either employ nurses, midwives and health visitors themselves, or they may make arrangements with voluntary 523 organisations for the purpose of visiting persons in their own homes. In either of those cases superannuation is taken care of, but there are a number of voluntary bodies who are doing this type of work but who have no arrangement with local health authorities.
The employees of some of these voluntary bodies may from time to time transfer to local authority employment, and those transfers are not covered as the Bill is now drawn. The Royal College of Nursing have drawn the attention of the Government to this matter, and the Clause seeks to put the position right.
Under this new Clause a woman employed as I have mentioned may, when transferring to local government employment, take her service with a voluntary organisation into account for two purposes: first, to determine whether she is entitled to become a contributory employee—although, for example she may already be over 50 years of age, she could become a contributory employee by virtue of this Clause—and secondly, to receive any particular benefit which depends upon her having completed a number of years service.
§ Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.