§ Mr. Brocklebank-Fowlerasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if the proposed gradual phasing in of new contracts will mean financial detriment to those doctors rotating between posts of a comparable workload at the same seniority;
(2) if, under the terms of the junior doctors' proposed new contract, doctors will have the right to refuse overtime duty in excess of their basic 44-hour week.
§ Dr. OwenI would refer the hon. Member to the report of the Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body published on 18th276W September (Cmnd. 6243) and to the reply my right hon. Friend gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) on 4th November—[Vol. 899, c. 91–94.]
§ Mr. Wrigglesworthasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) what is the average salary paid by the NHS to general practitioners;
(2) what scale of fees a general practitioner is paid for providing family planning services to his NHS patients.
§ Dr. OwenThe Doctors' and Dentists Review Body recommended fees and allowances for general medical services intended to produce average net remuneration after payment of practice expenses of £8,485 in 1975–76. They estimated that practitioners would also receive an average of roughly £250 from the new contraceptive services fees and other payments in respect of additional general medical services work, and about £220 from hospital work and from other official sources. These are average figures. The payments to general practitioners for contraceptive services are annual fees of £3.50 per patient ordinarily or £10 for patients fitted with an intra-uterine device in the year.
I regret that in the reply to the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Cordle) on 11th November—[Vol. 899, c. 634–6.]—the additional income estimated by the Review Body was given as £450 instead of £470.
§ Mr. Brocklebank-Fowlerasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what undertakings she has given to representatives of the junior hospital doctors that any contractual settlements would not be subject to any incomes policy in force at the time of implementation.
§ Mrs. CastleNone. It was agreed last January that the new contract for junior doctors should be priced by the Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body and that both parties were free to give evidence as they saw fit. Successive Governments have undertaken that the recommendations of a Review Body would be accepted unless there were clear and compelling reasons to the contrary, and I repeated this undertaking when I met junior doctors' representatives on 8th January 1975. The April 1975 Review Body award in respect of 277W junior doctors' pay was implemented in full by the Government. The evidence of the Government presented to the Review Body in late July on the new contract proposals for doctors drew attention to the importance of the attack on inflation and the new policies announced on 11th July. In its Report (Cmnd. 6243 paragraph 16) the Review Body discusses this limitation.