§ 104. Mr. BOWERMANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, where a panel of doctors is incomplete, it is the intention of the Insurance Commissioners to allow practitioners who have their names on the panel to undertake to engage a sufficient number of assistants so that the incomplete panel may become a complete one, and then to close the panel; or whether it is intended never to close panels, so that it may always be open to doctors to enter their names?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThe course suggested in the first part of the question might be adopted in any area where the panel was inadequate, and where, therefore, other arrangements had to be made under the proviso to Section 15 (2) of the National Insurance Act. But, as a matter 625W of fact, it has not yet been adopted in any case. Where the panel is adequate it is always open to any duly qualified medical practitioner to join it.