The Doctor's Due
The Minister of Health, who is wisely showing himself more pliable than his predecessor, is well-advised to meet the demand of the General Medical Services Committee to accept arbitration on the size of the general pool from which general practitioners draw their remuneration, and at the same time to set -up a working-party (the new jargon for committee) to consider the allied, but separate, question of the basis of distribution of the contents of the pool—e.g. how the unfairness of a per capita basis in the case of doctors, particularly rural doctors, with small lists of patients, can be obviated. The arbitration decision, which is the more important of the two, is substantially identical with what was proposed by the conference of county medical com- mittees last month. The request, backed by an unequivocal threat of a withdrawal from the Health Service altogether, was for independent arbitration on the size of the pool, full account being taken of the Spens Committee recommendations- on scales of payments and the change in the value of money since the Spens Report was issued. All this the Minister (and the Secretary of State for Scotland) has conceded, coupled with the reasonable stipulations that the adjudicator's finding shall be accepted by both sides, and that its implementation be conditional on an agreement being reached on a new plan for the distribution of the pool. The National Health Service Act has only been in operation for three years and the necessity for some modification of its provisions after an experimental period was always recognised. If the General Medical Services Committee next week accepts the Minister's proposals, as it is reasonable to assume, considerable and intelligible tension between the Ministry and the profession is likely to be eased.
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