§ Dr. Roger Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Social Services, in view of the Office of Health Economics reaffirming the need, stressed in the Black report on inequalities in health, for research into the effects social barriers have as deterents to health care, if he will make more finance available to health service research.
§ Sir George YoungThe Department currently supports a significant programme of health services research and is able to commission work in appropriate fields and to receive applications for support from researchers wishing to work in those fields. Some research is already being done into the access of different social groups to health services. Preliminary results of a study by Professor Rudolf Klein and Elizabeth Collins, funded by this Department, suggest that there is already equity of access to primary health care. The Department is also sponsoring research by the general practice research unit at Manchester university under Professor David Metcalfe into "Patterns of Inequality in Urban Primary Care".