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26
cess, and many more held back in the face of general practitioner
opposition. The situation changed dramatically in 1966
and again the reasons are easy to see.
Charter for
General Practice
For many years general practitioners had been dissatisfied
with their pay and conditions of service. Working as they do on
a contractual basis they considered they were overworked and
underpaid. Repeated batterings on the gate of Government
obduracy finally produced a Royal Commission which gave for
a time a measure of industrial peace but the discontent with
conditions of service continued unabated. Very large numbers
of doctors emigrated to end their clinical isolation and to
practise the sort of medicine they had been taught and it was
this, rather than any other single factor, which made the Government
realise that if it was not very careful there would be a
National Health Service with no doctors to run it. Accordingly,
1966 produced the Charter for General Practice which, among
many other things, made provision for partial reimbursement of
practice premise expenses and the expense of ancillary help.
Group Practice
Most doctors now realise that the days of single-handed
practice are drawing to a close and recognise that the future
of family medicine lies in group practice in which several
practitioners work together in close association, consulting
each other about their patients and often developing a special
interest such as paediatrics, obstetrics or dermatology. Such
groups often employ ancillary help and draw heavily on local
authority services. It is a natural step from such a group practice
to a health centre practice with a full range of local
health authority services attached. This realisation, allied
with the recent Charter, has again aroused interest in Health
Centres. On this occasion the Ministry of Health recognises and
encourages the interest to the extent of setting aside £2m for
health centres in 1967-68.
Early Development
in
Redbridge
Goodmayes
Lane
Health Centre
In Redbridge the new wave of enthusiasm for Health
Centres made itself felt early in 1966, when an approach was
received from the North East London Local Medical Committee.
It was possible to say that if sufficient family doctors were
interested then all future clinic building projects could be
designated as Health Centres. Plans for the clinic in Goodmayes
Lane, which had reached an advanced stage, were
scrapped and a fresh start was made to provide accommodation
for family doctors. Preliminary consultations with the Ministry
were very favourable and it appeared that loan sanction would
be readily forthcoming for a scheme acceptable to the Ministry.