§ Mr. Allen McKayasked the Secretary of State for Social Services, in view of the fact that the present system of doctors standby-call out arrangements, particularly in the Penistone constituency area, causes serious delay before patients are visited, if he will carry out a study to examine if a more beneficial system to both doctors and patients can be created.
§ Mr. MoyleThere is no single system of standby arrangements. Individual general practitioners are responsible for visiting their patients, including visits at night or at week-ends, when a visit is medically necessary, but may arrange for another doctor to deputise for them. If they wish to use a commercial deputising 641W service, they must get the consent of the family practitioner committee.
Occasional complaints of delay in visiting, whether by a principal or a doctor deputising for him, are investigated under the statutory complaints procedure but I am not aware of a general problem and have no proposals for a study.
I understand that in the Penistone area many doctors use a deputising service and that the local medical committee are in process of setting up a joint professional advisory committee, with local medical committees of neighbouring areas, to supervise the deputising services as required under the code of practice for deputising services which was introduced earlier this year.