Lieut.-Colonel C. LOWTHERasked the Minister of Health in what way the Medical Benefit Regulations for 1920 are intended to give an efficient medical service to the insured population; and whether his Department has considered the effect of restricting the freedom of the panel practitioner upon the production of a more efficient service?
§ Dr. ADDISONThe limits of an answer to a question do not permit of the various ways being set forth in which it is confidently believed that the new Regulations will fulfil the object, with which they were framed, of improving the efficiency of the insurance medical service. In answer to the second paragraph of the question, I would say that the general approval of the Regulations recently expressed by the conference of panel committees, in a resolution to which there were only three dissentients out of 147 representatives present, affords evidence that this result has been attained without undue restriction on the freedom of the insurance practitioner.