§ 22. Dame Irene Wardasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the Charing Cross Hospital use the Putney Migraine Clinic for the treatment of patients who cannot be offered treatment at Charing Cross; and if he will consider making wider use of the migraine clinic in the National Health Service.
§ Mr. PowellNo, Sir. Doctors in the National Health Service can offer any form of treatment they consider appropriate including that advocated by this clinic.
§ Dame Irene WardWhy is the Minister always so persistently against the Putney Migraine Clinic? In view of the production of all these new pills for migraine under the National Health Service, would it not be a good idea to consult the clinic to see what part it can play? This clinic has done a good deal of work on investigating a cure for migraine. Is it not nonsense the way in which my right hon. Friend has persistently ignored the work of the Putney Migraine Clinic?
§ Mr. PowellI am neither for nor against the Putney Migraine Clinic. All I am saying is that doctors under the National Health Service can give any form of treatment for migraine they consider appropriate, including that which the clinic advocates, of which I have every reason to think they are well aware.
§ Mr. RankinIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is an old sore and that, whatever doctors within the National Health Service may be able to do for the treatment of migraine, they are not doing it as a body because insufficient is known about the cause of migraine? Will not the Minister encourage further research to be done by the Medical Research Council into the cause and treatment of migraine?
§ Mr. PowellI do not answer for the Medical Research Council, but I have no doubt that doctors in the National Health Service are aware of the importance of the treatment of this disease and of their own responsibility to act in the best interests of their patients.
§ Mr. P. Noel-BakerIs the Minister aware that migraine if often caused by dislocations of which both the medical men and the patients themselves are unaware, and that the right treatment is often manipulation?
§ Mr. PowellI am afraid that I cannot enter into a clinical judgment.