§ Mr. Cartwrightasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if she will bring forward proposals to give community health councils powers to conciliate in disputes between patients and their general practitioners which do not relate to the technical competence of the doctor.
§ Dr. OwenI assume that my hon. Friend is referring to complaints which do not allege that a doctor has failed to comply with his terms of service and cannot, therefore, be dealt with formally under the service committee procedure. There is an agreed procedure operated by many family practitioner committees, under which a lay member of the service committee, with a medically qualified member to assist him, is appointed to deal informally with complaints against
ENGLAND 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 Daily available hospital beds within the National Health Service 423,621 419,612 412,664 403,526 396,235 Total Administrative and Clerical Staff (See Note 1) 58,262 61,651 65,491 69,417 74,716 Notes.—1. Administrative and clerical staff within the purview of the National Health Service Administrative and Clerical Staffs Whitley Council. Figures exclude staff of the former local health authorities and ambulance officers who, prior to 1st April 1974, were not included in the National Health Service administrative and clerical group.
2. A significant additional staff work load, assumed by health authorities in 1974, was the central administration of community health services; in respect of these functions £8 million, mainly repre-
550Wgeneral practitioners in cases where, at any rate initially, it appears that a formal investigation may not be necessary or appropriate. Cases where there is no allegation of a breach of the terms of service may be dealt with under this procedure. Alternatively the complaint may be dealt with informally by the Family Practitioner Services Administrator.
In the Government's view, community health councils would not be appropriate bodies to deal with disputes between individual general practitioners and their patients. At the same time, I hope the family practitioner committees will work closely with the community health councils. The councils can be of great assistance in explaining to members of the public the operation of the services administered by the committees and by ensuring that individual patients' complaints, both formal and informal, are passed promptly to the FPS administrator. The councils can also help committees by advising them of public feeling on more general issues affecting the availability of practitioner services in each district.