A Year of the Health Service
Though the National Health Service completed Its first year nearly three months ago no serious examination, official or unofficial, had been made till the Practitioner undertook such a comprehensive survey, with results which it publishes in its latest issue this week. On the whole the verdict is reassuring. Criticisms on specific points abound. The urban G.P. is overworked and sometimes under- paid ; the country G.P., with long distances to cover for domiciliary visits and hospital accommodation less easily obtainable than in the towns, is having a difficult time ; hospital beds are short, and the patient desiring a private room at a reasonable figure is worse off than he was before ; the failure to provide health centres has robbed the scheme of important expected advantages for both doctor and patient ; overcrowding in out-patients' departments of hospitals persists ; doctors everywhere are smothered by a mass of paperassene, which seriously impairs their professional efficiency ; decisions about the grading of consultants has created considerable discontent ; the teeth of school children are in danger of deteriorating owing to the financial disadvantage at which the school dental officer finds himself by comparison with the private dentist. While all this is true—and much of it was common knowledge already—the conclusion endorsed by many independent contributors to the survey is that, though it might have been much better to build the scheme up more gradually the present scheme can and will be made to work. Whether it is a good thing, either financially or morally, for the patient to get every- thing for nothing is a question that may yet have to be reconsidered.
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