Chapter 7 - Paying the Doctor: the BMA Caught Between Salaried Medicine and Fee-for-Service

Summary

Medical science, medical practice, has progressed far beyond the stage of the stethoscope, thermometer and bottle of medicine, and it has become a complex and very costly system of diagnosis and treatment. For the proper service of this system, both capital cost and the diversity of skill required demand some pooling of resources and the combination and coordination of medical men. Medical science has passed in fact as far beyond the stage at which the isolated individual private practitioner can fully satisfy its requirements as has the science of lighting passed beyond the kerosene lamp stage.

…having reached the stage of the public utility, the medical profession also needs Government help in finance and some form of central control

…I do not believe that this can be brought about by any other method than by some form of nationalization of medicine. I believe that to fit modern medicine properly into modern society you have to attack the very basis of private practice itself - the payment of fees.

Dr Arthur Brown, 1944