Volume 1

National Health Insurance. : Report [and Appendices Vols 1-4] of the Departmental Committee on Sickness Benefit Claims under the National Insurance Act.

  • Great Britain. National Health Insurance Joint Committee.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: National Health Insurance. : Report [and Appendices Vols 1-4] of the Departmental Committee on Sickness Benefit Claims under the National Insurance Act. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    18 December 1913.] Mr. C. W. Woodcock. [Continued. out more particularly in the Compensation Act cases, and especially since the passing of the second Act, which has warped men's character considerably. It has in some cases spoilt honest men. 15.226. Would quite a number of the members of your approved society also be members of other friendly societies ?—Oh, yes ; some members are mem- bers of the Manchester Unity, and so on. 15.227. So that in quite a number of cases the amount that they are entitled to receive when on sick pay approximates very closely to their ordinary wages ? —Yes. 15.228. And that in your experience offers a very considerable temptation, taking human nature as you find it ?—It does. 15.229. Tour experience has also led you to the conclusion that the doctors are readily granting certi- ficates ?—From our experience at the beginning, and also from these cases which I have brought up, they do not seem to be quite as strict as they might be. 15.230. Acting not so much upon their own diag- nosis as upon the statements of the insured persons ? —Yes, I have been told of cases where they have put down what the man has said. 15.231. Have you come across many cases of certificates being post-dated or ante-dated ?—I have had some ante-dated. I have had some wh,ere the doctor has put them back a day or something of that sort. Their excuse is that when the man comes, they know from his symptoms that he has been very ill. There are a number of men who will not go on the club, and when they go to the doctor, they say that they were bad all the previous day. 15.232. Do you think that in many cases doctors are granting certificates upon the statement of the insured person, because they themselves have not the time to make a careful examination owing to the largeness of their lists P—That is my personal impression. 15.233. Do you find an unwillingness on the part of the members of your society to return to work ?— Yes, in some cases. We have had to hasten a few up occasionally. I have one case in my mind now. He is one of those morbid kind of men who are often depressed, fancying there is something going to happen to them that has never happened to anyone else before. He wants pushing to work. He is not bad. He has got into a low state. We have that class of individual. 15.234. I take it that you regard your sickness visitation as being efficient ?—Yes, it could lie improved upon, no doubt, but as far as our experience goes it is acting very well, and I think that it is fairly efficient. We want to be efficient, and we try to be. 15.235. Of course you are placed in the particularly advantageous position to carry out that, which you mentioned to the Committee a little while back. You can take a patient from London to Derby or from Manchester to Liverpool to be examined by a perfectly independent doctor ?—Yes. 15.236. You will readily understand that those conditions do not apply to the majority of approved societies ?—Obviously. I wish to say that the directors are willing to assist us to stop malingering as much as possible, and they have given me a pass for a man to be examined. 15.237. You passed up a book in which are recorded cases of persons who are in receipt of benefit, giving their name and address and the nature of their illness ? —That is taken from the certificate as it comes in. 15.238. Mr. Mosses was particularly anxious to ascertain whether it was with the intention of pillory- ing. How would you state in this book the case of the man who was suffering from too much gin and water ?—They would have to put what the doctor put. The doctor would probably say Catarrh of the stomach, or something of that sort. 15.239. Therefore it would be left to the general knowledge of the man who had access to this book as to what construction to place upon the complaint ?— They would know the man. 15.240. (Mr. Daoiex.) Witli regard to compensation claims, do you find any difficulty in getting the men to set out that it is an accident rather than sickness ?— JSTo, I cannot call to mind any case of any difficulty of that sort. 15.241. I suppose that it would not operate so very much in your society because it would happen in the works, and they would know ?—I have access to all this information. If the point at the back of your mind is this, that if a man meets with an accident, and it is a question whether we pay him sick pay from the compensation side, I may say that I get to know from the company at once whether they are going to admit liability for compensation. I am in a position to get that information without any fuss. If a man meets with an accident, and he reports it to me I take it to the proper quarter, and, if it is right, he is put on compensation at once. 15.242. If you thought that it was a question of compensation as against sickness benefit, you would not hesitate to make application to the company because it happened to be the company ?—Oh, no, I should go straight to tin; company. 15.243. In the figures you have given it would be fair to assume that there are no compensation claims that have crept in, and that ought to have been paid from the other side ?—Oh, no. 15.244. Rule 26, clause 9, gives you1 power to remove committeemen. What power is that ?—We have never had a case of that nature, but there might be cases at times, and I think that that is what it is provided for, when it might have to be exercised. If a man was to commit a dishonest act, or act in a dis- honest way, we should have this power to remove him. It does not specify exactly, but I suppose that is what it would be. Supposing a man often came to the committee in a state in which he should not come, or used his influence with a member to defraud the society, we should use that rule. 15.245. Supposing the men knew that one of your committeemen was particularly favourable to them as against some stand which the committee were anxious to make, and he made himself obnoxious by fighting for the men as keenly as he could, would you have power under this resolution to get rid of that man ? It reads, The committee may, if they think fit, at anytime by resolution discharge any elected member of the committee ?—I do not for a moment think that in a society like ours, and a committee which is thoroughly democratic to the bottom, because a man fought up for his constituents, he would be otherwise than admired. We often have it. A man has to stick up for his own end frequently, but if a man fights straight he is always respected. I do not think that that applies. 15.246. I take it, then, that the rule was put in for a legitimate purpose. Besides what I have read, there is another part of the rule which sets out some other particulars which tone down perhaps what at first blush would appear to be something very extraordinary. We may take it that it would not be put into operation unless there was some rea} cause ?—Oh, no. 15.247. Do I gather that, compared with the con- ditions previous to the Act coming into operation, no man is getting less by reason of the Act having come into operation than he got previously ?—Yes. 15.248. You give them an extra benefit of 2s ? Yes. 15.249. I think that there were two grades of pay- ment previously ? 12s. per week for so long, and 6s. per week for another period ?—Yes. 15.250. If a man were sick for those periods would he, by reason of the Act, receive less now than he would have done previously p—No. When the period for sick pay of 12s.—that is the State 10s. and the 2s.— is exceeded, he goes on to half-pay and has 6s. per week, because the disablement benefit does not come into operation until July next year. When that comes into operation, they will draw Is. from the society and 5s. from the State. 15.251. So that you have set up a system to o-ive a man exactly the same benefits he would have had if the Act had not come into operation ?—Yes. 15.252. (Dr. Fulton.) You have always had a very strict rule as to the visitation of your members ?—Yes.