Colonel BURNasked the Minister of Health if he will give the date upon which the London Insurance Committee were notified by him of the amount of the Medical Benefit Fund for the year ended 31st December, 1918, the date upon which the committee may be expected to make a settlement with the practitioners for the year 1918, the explanation of the delay in making the settlement, and whether the Minister will arrange for the payment to practitioners of interest at the current bank rate on the amount of the overdue settlement?
§ Dr. ADDISONThe London Insurance Committee were notified of the amount of the Medical Benefit Fund for 1918 on the 9th September, 1919. I am informed that the committee hope to complete the accounting arrangements and to issue the cheques for the balances due to practitioners on the final settlement within the next few days. The accounting operations have been delayed by a few weeks, as compared with previous years, because the same staff have been engaged in calculat- 1173W ing and making payment of the current half-quarter's instalments of the doctors' remuneration and of the instalments of their 1919 war bonus. No funds are available to the insurance committee for the purposes of a payment such as is suggested in the last part of the question. I would add that the London doctors had instalments amounting to 84 per cent, of their money during 1918, and shortly after the end of that year. Some considerable delay, before the final settlement for the year can be effected, is unavoidable under present arrangements, but a new system is being introduced to which the profession have agreed, from 1920 onwards, which will entirely obviate these long delays in making a final settlement.