§ 36. Mr. A. J. Irvineasked the Minister of Health if he will circularise doctors employed in the National Health Service discouraging them from engaging assistants upon condition that they will not practise in competition within a 81W certain area after they have ceased to be under contract as assistants, in view of the fact that this impedes the freedom of patients to be treated by the doctor of their choice.
§ Miss Hornsby-SmithNo. Assistants enter into private professional agreements, in this respect, with the doctors who employ them and my right hon. Friend certainly does not wish to intervene.