National medical service
1943-10-20 1943 1940s 15 pages -6- (D) Laboratory services, and other investigations such as examinations of sputum, urine and other excretory investigations, examinations for the germs causing the disease in any case, and for x-ray examinations etc. (E) Provision and facilities for Ancillary ser...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
20 October 1943
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/307032E0-3BDC-490B-9232-BD91A945491C http://hdl.handle.net/10796/FA4FFE1F-FB96-4F8F-BAFE-ED101E241EDB |
| Summary: | 1943-10-20
1943
1940s
15 pages
-6- (D) Laboratory services, and other investigations such as examinations of sputum, urine and other excretory investigations, examinations for the germs causing the disease in any case, and for x-ray examinations etc. (E) Provision and facilities for Ancillary services, such as Dispensing, Nursing, Massage etc. (A) The Medical Institutions are mainly of two types - those provided by voluntary non-official agencies and those provided by local authorities as permitted by statute. (i) The so-called voluntary hospitals have a long history and tradition of very good professional work. Originally charitable institutions, philanthropically financed, for the medical treatment of the needy and destitute and poor, and administered altruistically by private boards of selected persons, these institutions in varying degree, have shed all their old qualities, except that of "voluntary management." Voluntary management has now come to mean a committee or Managing Board of selected unrepresentative persons meeting regularly, responsible to themselves, and assisted, by a permanent full-time official, a lay secretary or a Medical Superintendent (Scotland). These institutions now obtain their finance for extension and upkeep from mixed sources, partly by philanthropic or charitable grants from private individuals, partly from contributory subscribing scheme, and partly from organised financial appeals of diverse types. There is no common financial pool, practically no unifying organisation for administration or purchase of supplies, with a competitive struggle for varying assets and financial strength and even for maintenance expenses. In spite of a greatly increased effort, and much advertising and propaganda display in more recent years, their finance is still precarious with prospects of increasing difficulty in the future. Costs are rising including costs of patients' upkeep and maintenance and institutional equipment. Modern medical apparatus in up-to-date institutions is a costly business, some items such as X-ray apparatus and operating theatre installations, and laboratories being especially so. Necessary financial provision for staff and their good working conditions and amenities mean increased cost. In consequence many of the voluntary hospitals in which in the past and even in the present work of the highest excellence has been and is being done, badly sited and with deteriorating buildings as they are, have very poor diagnostic and other equipment according to modern standards. That is why in certain cities of Britain such as Aberdeen, Manchester, Oxford, Birmingham, new buildings for voluntary hospitals have been put up and the inter-institutional liason [liaison] reorganised. In recent years the voluntary hospitals have undergone considerable internal improvement, with plans in different parts for regional co-ordination, institutional reconstruction, or rebuilding, or new buildings, co-operative equipment purchases, reform of out-patient departments, extension of contributory schemes, further development of the Lady Almoners means-enquiring system, and the provision of private beds for paying patients in attached or adjacent private wards on nursing home lines but the essential basis remains viz, "voluntary" management, increasing financial difficulties, deteriorating equipment without adequate replenishment. etc. These difficulties were especially manifested when in a persistent call for Rehabilitation facilities in an overhaul of fracture or casualty treatment from an industrial Man Power aspect, the voluntary hospitals found themselves financially unable, without Government grants, even to contemplate the essential increase in accommodation either in hospital wards or annexes or in attached rehabilitation centres. Though there was general agreement following the B.M.A. Fracture Committee Report and that of the Government's
292/847/2/113 |
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |