Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1942-11-16
British Social Services
To Be Recognized
To Abolish Poverty'
War FoiIs to Deter
Improvement in JobIess
And OId-Age Assistance
BY H. J. ]. SARGENT.

Oy - l.,
Foreign Correspondent of The Star and
North American Newspaper Alliance.
LONDON, Nov. 16.-The British
national plan to abolish poverty.
drafted by Sir William Beveridge,
chairman of the Government Com
mittee on Social Insurance, is in the
hands Of the cabinet. The result of
II months work, the report runs to
some 10000 words-the length of a
novel. It will be on sale to the pub
lie by about Christmas and those
who, have seen early copies say it
should be best seller. Indeed it
affects the life and welfare of every
man and woman in the country.
Here Is brief review of the serv-
ices which already exist and which,
although they are in many respects
the most elaborate in the world, may
be carried considerably further by
the Beverage report.
The unemployed are protected in
several ways: BY the unemployment
insurance scheme, by the assistance
board which looks after those who
have exhausted their rights under
the first scheme, and by public as
sistance which acts as kind OF net
to receive all those who are not
eligible for other forms of social as
sistance. Those who are out OF work
through illness are cared for by the
national health insurance scheme,
and those unemployed through old
age, by the contributory and non
contributory pensions scheme.
Forms Being Improved.
These forms Of insurance and as
sistance are constantly being i'm
proved, and war has been no deter
rent to this progress. Two months
ago, for instance, the assistance
board raised the pension allowances
for more than a million old people,
bringing the total cost of all old-age
pensions to G135 100000 year. That
was not an emergency measure de-
pendent on war conditions but
permanent reform.
A human aspect of the new regu-
lations is that, while in the past
many hundreds of thousands OF
old-age pensioners were too proud
to apply to the public assistance
authorities for extra help, their
pensions now are taken to them by
officers of the assistance board who
visit the old people in their homes.
Again, under the national health
insurance scheme an additional
-, hppn
allotted to the benefits and the
scope of these extended to another
half million people. This, too, will
be a permanent measure.
Include Proper Medicines.
Under the same scheme are the
medical benefits, which provide free
medical attendance and treatment
and include the provision OF proper
medicines and of the prescribed
surgical appliances. The doctors
who undertake this work are known
Familiarity in England as panel
doctors" People in the area where
they work are free to choose from
the local list whatever panel
doctor" they prefer and to get the
medicine he prescribes from any
authorized chemist, free.
All this is financed on a contrib
utory basis, the contributions be-
ing shared equally between work.
ers and their employers, with a
subsidy from the state. The unem-
ployment insurance works on the
same principle and covers all men
between the ages of 16 and IS and
women between 16 and so who are
employed in Great Britain at sal
aries under f42O a year. This means
that almost 80 per cent OF the
working population is now covered.
In this scheme, too, benefits have
been raised by three shillings dur
ing the last year.
Many of the social services have
been adapted to wartime exigencies
but this could never have been
done so successfully if the authori-
ties had not been able to build on
good existing framework. An
other factor that has been of great
positive advantage in planning for
war conditions is the reserve of
good health built up indirectly
through the 100000 new houses
constructed between 1918 and 1899.
$1,000 Beds Added.
Although the civilian building
program has now virtually come to
q standstill, in the last three years
accommodation for $1,000 beds has
been added to the hospitals of Eng
land and Wales alone, and building
on the same scale has provided
Scotland with IS government-owned
hospitals, with total of II 800 beds.
There are, in addition, 100 emer-
gency maternity homes.
For the purposes of war, 80 per
cent of the hospitals have been
welded together in the emergency
hospital service. This is the first
time that the state has stepped into
the hospital system, which it now
controls and finances, though on
the casualty side only, which in
cludes injuries to civilians due to
air raids.
Many hospitals have formed mo-
bile teams of doctors and nurses
who can be moved to another hos
pital or another town as a complete