The position of the general medical practitioners in a reorganised system of public health
1919 1919 1910s 18 pages of the institution and with the formulation of schemes of co-ordination between the domiciliary and institutional treatment in the area. When there are hospitals of different or even of similar type within the local Government area, co-ordination between their work should be...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
London : Co-operative Printing Society
[1919?]
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/8777DC83-8113-4533-8C88-044046649830 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/BCF2FB74-198F-4CF5-A85D-761882F0F2E4 |
| Summary: | 1919
1919
1910s
18 pages
of the institution and with the formulation of schemes of co-ordination between the domiciliary and institutional treatment in the area. When there are hospitals of different or even of similar type within the local Government area, co-ordination between their work should be secured by means of liaison officers or inter-representation upon the respective committees, so that transfer of suitable cases can be duly arranged, and so that the services of specialists upon the staff of one hospital may be available at any other hospital not having specialists, or the required specialist, upon its staff. As the Public Health Department at the Town or County Hall is recognised as the centre of all activities connected with communal health, so the hospital, or the chief of the group of hospitals, in the area should become the centre of activities connected with individual health. As the general practitioner should be encouraged to apply to the M.O.H. for assistance in stamping out epidemics or securing sanitary surroundings for his patients, so he should apply to the chief administrative officer at the hospital for consultative advice or assistance in the treatment of his individual patient, either by admission into the appropriate institution, or by investigation at the consultative out-patients' department, or by the visit of a consultative specialist at the patient's home. It is also essential that for the medical treatment of all patients for whose maintenance in the hospital the local authority accepts responsibility, payment on a scale agreed upon between the local authority and the local profession shall be made to the practitioners rendering professional service. If a scheme for the co-ordination of the individual health service in each area can be established by linking up the hospitals together, and these again with local practitioners under the general supervision of the local authorities' chief clinical officer, great advances in public health would be secured by close co-operation between this service and the service protecting the communal health. The Medical Officer of Health could bring pressure upon the staffs of teaching hospitals to give greater prominence to preventive medicine in the curriculum. On the other hand, the records of the hospital would be open to him for statistics and other researches into local housing and industrial conditions as the causes of disease. His influence would lead to an attempt to convert the hospital notes into continuous health records of a considerable number of inhabitants of the area indicating the persistence of factors inimical to health, and the effect of new factors with advancing age. The success of such co-operation would prove that it is neither necessary nor desirable to secure a complete domination of all health activities by the point of view of the sanitarian. Better results will be secured by two equal departments working hand in hand. It is believed also that by the proposals set out above it may be possible to bring at once the great voluntary hospitals into a co-ordinated scheme without arousing the opposition which would ensue upon a proposal either to abolish or supersede these institutions, or to bring them at once under the complete control of the State or the local authority. These suggestions are not intended to be exhaustive. They indicate broadly the main lines of possible and immediate advance, whilst still leaving it possible for more thorough schemes to be considered at a later stage. But the scheme outlined would in itself make a revolution in medical science and public health. The health of the people would assume a new importance in the work of the State. The social causes of disease would be carefully diagnosed and dealt with. The science of preventive medicine would make rapid strides. Sound medical advice and treatment would be brought within reach of all. The fatal drain on national life and vitality would be arrested, and over a given number of years it would be possible to build up gradually a far more healthy population. 13
36/H24/6 |
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |