Municipal medical advisors and their tasks

: By means of a questionnaire sent to all Danish municipalities which yielded a 95.3 per cent response, the employment and working conditions of municipal medical advisors are described. The employment rate of medical advisors varies greatly from one county to another. In some counties none are employed, while in others all municipalities employ one. A total of 192 out of 262 municipalities employ medical advisors. The advisors are occupied in all the different fields described in the employment agreement. The majority of the municipal medical advisors are general practitioners appointed on an hourly basis for less than seven hours a week. No significant difference is registered between municipalities as regards the size of the municipality or the advisors' status in the Danish Medical Association (practitioner, specialist or assistant physician), except for the fact that the smallest municipalities employ medical advisor for fewer hours per 10,000 inhabitants than the average. It is concluded that, in the majority of the municipalities, a social case evaluation system exists which makes combined medical and social evaluation possible as provided in important parts of the social legislation in Denmark. It is pointed out, that the anticipated transfer from counties to municipalities of the competence to adjudge social and disablement pension, provided the present standard of case evaluation is to be maintained, will cause problems in the municipalities which have not appointed medical advisors for the evaluation the medical aspect of disablement.