Mr. F. HALLasked the Secretary to the Treasury if uniform arrangements are prescribed by the Insurance Commissioners for the method and time of payment to doctors working under the National Insurance Act; if he is aware that as regards Derbyshire the panel doctors have not yet received the whole of the amount due to them under the Act in respect of the first quarter of the year, the reason assigned being that all the patients are not yet allocated; if he can state the total number of insured persons in Derbyshire, and the proportion of them which have been assigned to approved doctors; and if steps can be taken to ensure more prompt payment of the amounts due to medical men in the area referred to?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThe hon. Member is under a misapprehension in thinking that a payment of a previously ascertainable amount is due at the end of each quarter of the calendar year to each doctor now on the panel. The Regulations provide that the insurance committee shall make payments in advance at the end of each quarter of such amounts as may be agreed for this purpose between it and the doctors on the panel; but the precise amount actually due to any particular doctor can only be finally determined when all the various factors in the year's working of the Act have been ascertained and allowed for. Of course, no doctor will receive any payment in respect of any quarter during which he was not on the panel. The answer to the third part of the question is in the negative, and to the fourth part, in round numbers, 20,000 out of 172,000.
§ Sir JOHN SPEARasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he will give, for the information of insured persons in the Princetown, Huccaby, and Postbridge districts, Devonshire, the names of those medical men on the panel who have agreed to attend insured patients in that area?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThe names of the doctors in question, like those of all other doctors on the panel, are included in the lists exhibited in post, offices and other places for the information of insured1256W persons. I have already furnished the hon. Member with the doctors' names.
§ Sir J. SPEARasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that a doctor on the panel for Postbridge, Devon, refused to sign the card of Susan Coaker, an insured person whom he attended, on the ground that he refused to sign all cards in that district until the Commissioners had agreed to pay mileage fees suitable to the peculiarities of the district, and although Miss Coaker was ill in February she has been unable to obtain any sickness benefit up to now; and will he state what steps he proposes to take in this case?
§ Mr. MASTERMANMy attention has not been drawn to the case referred to, but I am making inquiries of the insurance committee. I may add that arrangements have now been made for the payment of special allowances on account of mileage in the district in question.