§ Mr. Geoffrey Finsbergasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he has yet completed his consideration of the interim report of the Hunter Working Party on the rôle of the medical administrator.
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§ Sir K. JosephYes. The Interim Report draws my attention to the need to prepare medical administrators at present in post in the hospital and public health services for work within a reorganised health service. It proposes that I should arrange facilities by which all such doctors could over the next five years or so receive suitable retraining: this retraining might take 6–8 weeks but could be divided in two parts, and might in part be taken in association with the other groups of staff with whom medical administrators will be working.
I am grateful to Dr. Hunter and his colleagues for their work and I accept their recommendations. I am considering the best way of achieving quickly these objectives and some parallel objectives relating to other senior Health Service staff, and will be consulting the various National Health Service, local government and other interests concerned shortly.