Page:The New National Health Service Leaflet 1948.pdf/2



You and everyone in your family will be entitled to all usual advice and treatment from a family doctor. Everyone aged 16 and over can choose his or her own doctor. A family need not all have the same doctor, but parents or guardians choose for children under 16.

Your dealings with your doctor will remain as they are now: personal and confidential. You will visit his surgery, or he will call on you, as may be necessary. The difference is that the doctor will be paid by the Government, out of funds provided by everybody.

Choose a doctor now—ask him to be your doctor under the new arrangements. Many will choose their present doctors. Any doctor can decline to accept a patient. If one doctor cannot accept you, ask another, or ask to be put in touch with one by the new "Executive Council" which has been set up in your area (you can get its address from the Post Office).

If you are already on a doctor's list under the old National Health Insurance Scheme, and if you do not want to change your doctor, do nothing. Your name will stay on his list under the new scheme.

But for your family, and for yourself if you are not already in the old National Health Insurance Scheme, now is the time to decide. Get an application form for each member of the family from the doctor you choose, or from any Post Office, Executive Council Office, or public library. Fill in the forms and give them to the doctor.

Later, your local Executive Council will send a "medical card" to everyone who has been accepted by a doctor. If you want to change your doctor, you can do so at any time without difficulty. If you need a doctor when away from your own district, you can go to any doctor who is taking part in the new arrangements. You will not have to pay.

Help to have the Scheme ready by 5th July by choosing your doctor at once.

For any further information about these arrangements, ask at the offices of the local Executive Council.

An expectant mother can have the services of a doctor who undertakes maternity work (whether he is her usual doctor or not), and of a midwife, as well as general care before and after confinement. If her usual doctor does not undertake maternity work, he, or the Welfare Centre, will put the expectant mother in touch with another doctor. It will be the doctor's responsibility, with a midwife, to give all proper care and (if he considers it necessary or is called in by the midwife) to be present at the confinement.