§ Sir W. Robson Brownasked the Minister of Health whether chronically sick patients who are permanently resident in a hospital are still required to remain on the active list of their panel doctor.
§ Mr. Walker-SmithArrangements are made for the removal from the lists of general medical practitioners of the names of patients who have been in a mental or mental deficiency hospital for two years or more.
The relatively small number of very long stay chronic sick patients in other hospitals, while not required to remain on the lists, are at liberty to do so. It would be wrong to put pressure on them to leave their family doctors' lists since this could be interpreted by them as implying that their condition was hopeless; nor has the responsibility of the family doctor necessarily ended in these cases.