Family doctor service

The professional attention of a family doctor is available to everyone. Patients may choose the doctor they wish, provided only that he is enrolled in the Service and that he agrees to attend them. They may also change their doctor. The doctor has the same freedom to accept or refuse patients as he wishes. He cannot be forced to attend any person against his will. The doctor working in the Service is entitled to attend paying patients who have not joined the Service, if he cares to do so.

The doctor in the Family Doctor Service is free to treat his patients exactly as the family doctor treated them in the past. If a serious illness develops or diagnosis is difficult, he may call in a consultant and get hospital treatment without reference to any out­side authority.

The 4 maximum permitted number of patients names to be put on one principal's list is 3,500 and the present average number is about 2,200.

A doctor in public service is remunerated by a capitation payment for each patient registered with him, with an addition of 12 shillings for every patient within the range of 501 to 1,500 on his list.

At present the Family Doctor Service is almost always orga­nized from the doctor's own surgeries, to which patients go for advice and treatment unless the doctor visits them at home. A few doctors work from health centers.

Many general practitioners are working with one assistant. To become an assistant to the general practitioner (the principal) is a common method of entering general practice.

The hospital and specialists services provide hospital accommodations of all kinds for in-patients and out-patients; hospital mater­nity departments; infectious disease units; convalescent homes and others.

Doctors are not attracted into the hospital service by the poor pay and even poorer prospects. This leaves the public hospitals in the hands of doctors who are always overworked, some-times incompe­tent and often not interested in the care their patients receive.

There is a considerable number of hospitals which remain outside the service. Some of them are run by religious orders and are a law into themselves. There are also private hospitals and nursing homes, where charges are very high.

Needless to say the level of medical care greatly differs in the two categories of hospitals the private ones and the ones which are part of the National Health Service.

The British working people call for more allocations for health services and allowances for people with inadequate incomes.

Professional training

Only persons whose names are on the medical register can practice as doctors in the National Health Service, and only persons whose names are on the dental register can practice dentistry in Britain. The minimum qualification for registration requires, for a doctor, five to seven years' training in the medical school and hospi­tal, and, for a dentist, four years at a dental school.

It also requires that before becoming fully registered and enti­tled to practice independently a medical student must spend at least a year after the completion of his examinations in satisfactory service in a resident medical capacity in one or more approved hospitals or institutions.