HEALTH SERVICE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 24 October 1942, Page 3

HEALTH SERVICE

BRITISH PROGRAMME ATTITUDE OF DOCTORS London, Oct. 21. The introduction of an extensive programme of social reform, of which social medicine might form an integral part, was foreseen a; an immediate post-war measure by Sir Wilson Jameson, chief medical officer to the Ministry of Health, when addressing the Royal College of Physicians, London. As a result of th_ war, he said, there had been developed thorughout the | country an emergency hospital scheme. ; which could, and did, accept responsi--1 bility which neither the medical proJ fession nor the hospitals in then . former condition as isolated units could ever have undertaken. 1 The service was originally designed Jto secure treatment of sick service personnel and battle and air raid casualties, but it had come to care for the medical needs of large groups of civilians. Giving instances of this service. Sir jeon mentioned immunisation against diphtheria, which had become part of the Government public health proj gramme, new methods of attack on 1 tuberculosis, a real nutrition policy and a national plan for the collection of hospital statistics. Another sign o' great significance, •he said, had been the formation by '■ the British Medical Association of i it. planning commission and, still more j significant, was the character of its interim report. They might read into this report, j he added, a realisation on the part of ' the medical profession that their continued existence as a series of isolated j ur : * s in the interests neither of ! themselves nor the public—that if i private practitioners were to take their j proper place in the coiTduct of public medical services the medical profession would have to submit to an agreed | measure of reorganisation, and that the better use ol medicine by the State must form an essential element in any 1 post-war policy of social reconstruct ■ tion. —P.A.