# The new National Health Service

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THE NEW
NATIONAL
HEALTH
SERVICE
Your new National Health Service begins on 5th July. What is it? How do you get it?
It will provide you with all medical, dental, and nursing care. Everyone—rich or poor, man, woman or child—can use it or any part of it. There are no charges, except for a few special items. There are no insurance qualifications. But it is not a "charity". You are all paying for it, mainly as taxpayers, and it will relieve your money worries in time of illness.
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.
The help of consultants and specialists of all kinds will be made available to you as national resources allow, whether at hospital, at special health centres, or at home.
Your doctor will arrange this help when you need it.
Hospital charges will cease on 5th July. Where accommodation permits, however, you can pay something for greater privacy (for example, in single rooms or small wards). Or if you do not want to use the new service itself, there will be private pay-bed accommodation for which you can make your own private fee arrangements with doctors.
The same is true of all necessary appliances. Some of them will be obtainable for through hospitals; some your doctor can prescribe for you. There will be no charge, unless careless breakage causes earlier replacement than usual.
After 5th July you can go to any dentist taking part in the new arrangements (there will be a list at your Post Office). You need no application form. Just call, by appointment, on the dentist of your choice when you need him. At his surgery you and he will sign a form for your treatment under the new arrangements. All necessary fillings and dentures will be supplied without fee, but if you want anything specially expensive, and beyond what is necessary, you will pay the extra cost yourself.
Until a full dental service, without delays, can be made available, a special priority service for expectant and nursing mothers and young children is being organised by local authorities (in addition to the school dinners service). Full information about this priority service can be obtained at Welfare Centres.
​First get a recommendation from your family doctor that your eyes need testing. Then hand that recommendation to any doctor with special qualifications (lists will be available) or to any ophthalmic optician taking part in the new service. If you need glasses, these will be provided without charge. For re-testing you can go direct to any of the doctors with special qualifications, or to an ophthalmic optician.
The National Health Service will provide several kinds of spectacles of different types. For specially expensive types you will have to pay the extra cost.
WHAT TO DO NOW
* Choose your doctor.
* Get application forms from him or from the Post Office, Public Library, or office of the local Executive Council.
* Fill one in for each member of the family.
* Hand them to the doctor.
ACT AT ONCE
PREPARED BY THE CENTRAL OFFICE OF INFORMATION FOR THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH
This work is in the public domain worldwide because it was created by a public body of the United Kingdom with Crown Status and commercially published before 1974.
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