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The number of consultations by the tuberculosis officer with medical
practitioners has also increased from 79 in 1919 to 92 in 1920.
Practitioners are always informed by letter (if urgent by telephone)
of the tuberculosis officer's opinion in new cases sent by them and as to
the progress of old cases should any special point arise such as change of
treatment. New patients who are actually under the treatment of panel
or private doctors are not examined unless with the doctors' written
consent. Exceptions are made in cases sent by the Ministry of Pensions
and other health authorities.
Typewritten hk- 11 cal reports by the tuberculosis officer to practitioners
on cases numbered 410 in 1920. In 1919 they numbered 302. Carbon
copies of those reports are filed in the dispensary case records and form
very important data in the history of the case. Practitioners have, from
time to time, expressed their appreciation of the regularity with which
reports on their cases are sent to them.
Periodical Reports on Insured Person • under Domiciliary Treatment.—
The Insurance Committee send reminders to panel practitioners concerning
six-monthly reports on insured consumptives. Those reports by the
panel practitioners are sent to the tuberculosis officer, who notes the
contents and sends the reports to the Insurance Committee. The Insurance
Committee consider those reports and return them to the tuberculosis
officer with appropriate comment. They are then filed with
the dispensary case record. In Westminster those domiciliary reports
have never fulfilled any very useful purpose. Practitioners have complained
of many fruitless journeys made to the homes of patients for the
purpose of making reports. Many of the patients are at work and have
not been under treatment for two or three years. In cases showing
breakdown or lack of progress, practitioners in Westminster, as a rule,
are not slow in acquainting the tuberculosis officer, and calling in his
assistance. Moreover, all the insured consumptives who are not quite
permanently established in good health attend regularly at the dispensary
for examination on an average every four months. In the intervening
periods they may or may not be under regular medical treatment by their
panel practitioners. Some patients attend the dispensary once a year
for examination. They keep their appointment dates remarkably.
well. Practical experience has shown in this district at least that the
domiciliary reports of panel practitioners do not furnish the tuberculosis
officer with information of which he is not already in possession, either
by the patients' own periodic visits to the dispensary or by general facts
supplied by the health visitors.