Statement in regard to the Minister of Health's White Paper on the establishment of "A National Health Service."
1944 1944 1940s 18 pages ambulances and other puposes [purposes]. Employees in all these services will be affected. The report gives no indication as to who will be responsible for their continued employment and also future liabilities. The Joint Authority (of course after consultation with the so-...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
|---|---|
| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
[1944]
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/D0D6098B-EE05-4DD9-80EB-FABE274AB568 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/FBF0F538-7BAD-453F-9EB9-E188ECE321A8 |
| Summary: | 1944
1944
1940s
18 pages
ambulances and other puposes [purposes]. Employees in all these services will be affected. The report gives no indication as to who will be responsible for their continued employment and also future liabilities. The Joint Authority (of course after consultation with the so-called 'experts') will prepare a plan. This will be a co-ordinating plan embracing the above - named services in a given area. Will such committee be the employing authority.? Will the existing auithorities [authorities] continue to be the employing authority and administering the functions under contract of agreement with the new Joint Authority or Health Board. There are two clues in the report which might be recognised as an answer. "The proposed joint authority, operating over a large area has been described. It will [be] that authority's responsibility, with the Minister to see that a full hospital service of all kinds is available for people in its area. But the authority neither will, nor will need to, provide the whole service itself." There is also the hint of 'contracting', for the report says that 'The conception of a public authority discharging its duty by contracting with others for the provision of services has long been familiar". Note the word 'available'? Who is to maintain and administer? Let us delve a little deeper into this question for the report is so contradictory that at the moment any definite answer is not available. In one place we are told that "the provision and administration of most of the local services (i.e. Health Services) including some new kinds of service will normally rest with the individual county and county borough councils." These councils are representative of the people. As democrats we welcome the proposal. We proceed a little farther, and we are then told "It would be theoretically possible to put upon the council of each county and county borough the duty to provide, or to arrange with other agencies for, the whole range of hospital services." Later the following appears :- "The function of the new joint authorities will be to secure a complete hospital and consultant service of all kinds for each of the new and larger areas - partly by their own direct provision and partly by arrangement with voluntary hospitals, and all on the basis of an area hospital plan which they will formulate in consultation with the hospitals and others concerned, and which will require the Minister's final settlement and approval. The existing powers and duties of the present local authorities in regard to hospital services - including tuberculosis, infectious disease and mental health - will pass to the joint authorities, together with the existing hospitals and other institutions concerned." Are the people's hospitals and institutions to he transferred from their elected representatives to some "ad-hoc" authority representing nobody.? If this means what it states - where are the county and county borough councils coming in.? We get more confused when we read that the real task of the new joint authorities will be to 'unify and to co-ordinate the service."....... They will not themselves provide and operate all the services for which the approved area plan provides; nor is there any need for them to do so. They will usually administer themselves only those branches of the service which demand direct administration over the large area as a whole, and not those which can suitably be administered on a more localised basis". The question we previously posed remains unanswered. The Hospital Services in an area may be made 'available' by contract i.e. other bodies may be contracted into the scheme of availability, subject to fulfilment of certain conditions. The Minister in his report has, for reasons best known to himself, carefully 'stressed' this aspect. Frankly it has a very unsavoury 'smell'. Many of us in the hospital serivices [services] have had experience of this 'contracting process.' It raises many possibilities. Many medical men are interested in the maintenance of certain nursing homes in all parts of the country. These are profit making, Will such homes be brought into the scheme and made available.? Carry this argument further, and it is possible to visualise that all kinds of 12.
292/847/2/43 |
|---|---|
| Physical Description: | TEXT |