First report / Forces Medical and Dental Service Committee.

  • Great Britain. Forces Medical and Dental Services Committee
Date:
1956
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First report / Forces Medical and Dental Service Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/72 page 1
    To: The Rt. Hon. SELWYN LLoyp, C.B.E., T.D., Q.C., M.P.. Minister of Defence. SIR, I, INTRODUCTORY We were appointed by your predecessor, Earl Alexander of Tunis, as a Committee with the following Terms of Reference: — “To review the arrangements for providing medical and dental services for the Armed Forces at home and abroad in peace and war; and to make recommendations ”. These Terms of Reference were announced in a written reply given by the Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Defence, in the House of Commons on Ist December, 1953. This announcement had been preceded by a Press Notice issued by the Ministry of Defence on 15th September, 1953, in which the Government’s intention to set up the Committee, the name of the Chairman, and the proposed Terms of Reference were made public. The Press Notice, the full text of which is given in Appendix I, also announced the adoption, with effect from 1st October, 1953, of “‘ certain immediate steps which it is hoped will result in increased numbers of medical men being attracted to make a career in the Services”. The interim measures com- prised: improved rates of pay for medical officers in the middle ranks (Major to Brigadier in the Army and their equivalents in the other Services”) ; increased specialist pay in the Navy and the Army, and corresponding advantages for specialists in the Air Force; and a permanent commission grant of £1,500 (taxable) to officers granted regular commissions. Other measures with the same object in view were announced at the same time. Principal amongst these were: posts for retired officers ; antedates up to seven years for new entrant doctors according to their civil experience ; and the extension of the system of three-year short service commissions, already in operation in the Air Force, to national service officers in the Army. Interim measures of a similar kind were introduced in the case of Service dental officers. 2. We held our first meeting on 2nd December, 1953, and have since then held 56 meetings of the full Committee, besides meetings of two separate Panels of the Committee set up to interview serving officers. 3. On 4th December, 1953, we issued a general invitation to all concerned to submit evidence and received in response written memoranda and offers to contribute oral evidence from a wide variety of sources. Special steps were taken to ensure that we were made acquainted with Service opinion in regard to matters within our Terms of Reference. The evidence we received fell into the following four main categories : — (a) Evidence of Service Officers We approached the Service Departments with a request that facilities be given for all serving medical and dental officers to submit to us direct written evidence in regard to any matters which they wished to bring to our notice. The Service Departments readily acceded to our request and over one hundred memoranda were received from regulary, short service and national service medical and dental officers in the Navy, Army and Air Force, some of whom were engaged on specialist duties and some on administrative and general duties. A careful analysis * Where reference is intended to Service ranks of all three Services, Army ranks only are sometimes given for the sake of brevity; the corresponding ranks in the Navy and Air Force will be found in the Table on page iv. . + The expression “‘ regular ’’ is used to describe officers holding permanent commissions in the Navy, Army or Air Force, as opposed to officers who hold short service or national service commissions.
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