§ Mr. Cyril Smithasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make the reports of medical services committee hearings, which he receives from family practitioner committees, routinely available to the medical press and to family practitioner committee administrators, and chairmen of medical services committees; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. HayhoeNo. The service committee regulations require that service committee reports should be sent to the parties to the investigation and to the Secretary of State. The reports can often contain details of a confidential and personal nature. i do not think that it would be in the interests of either the patient or the practitioner for the report to be circulated in the way suggested.
§ Mr. Cyril Smithasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list for the most recent years for which statistics are available, for each family practitioner committee in the north west region (a) the number of complaints referred initially to an informal procedure; (b) the number of complaints under (a) above which were eventually referred to a medical services committee, (c) the total number of medical services committee hearings, (d) the number of appeals lodged with him against medical services committee decisions (i) by general practitioners, (ii) by complainants, (e) in (d)(i) and (ii) above the number of cases which were successfully appealed either with or without an appeal hearing and (f) give the estimated populations relevant to each family practitioner committee area listed in the answers, as they existed at the date of the statistics.
§ Mr. HayhoeI regret that this information is not available.