Rehabilitation : report of a Sub-Committee of the Standing Medical Advisory Committee.

  • Great Britain. Standing Medical Advisory Committee. Sub-Committee on Rehabilitation.
Date:
1972
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Rehabilitation : report of a Sub-Committee of the Standing Medical Advisory Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    habilitation but are not hospitals in the true sense. Some are general, catering for all types of patients while others will only accept patients with specific disabilities. The majority of the centres are residential and patients attend at all stages of recovery once they are past the initial stages of illness requiring treatment in an acute hospital. Since 1968 one of these medical rehabilitation centres has been combined with an industrial rehabilitation unit which is run by the Department of Employment in the grounds of the medical rehabilitation centre. However fourteen years elapsed before this experimental comprehensive medical and industrial rehabilitation centre was established in accordance with the recommendations of the Piercy Committee, and it is still the only one of its kind. 18. There are seven miners’ rehabilitation centres in England and Wales which were planned to cater for miners who sustained severe injuries but nowadays they take other groups of patients. The centres are administered by the regional hospital boards through individual hospital management committees. Convalescence 19. Although all hospital authorities continue to provide limited convalescen facilities, statistics provided by the Department of Health and Social Security show that this is a gradually declining medical activity. In the 11 year period 1958-1969 the average daily occupancy of hospital convalescent beds fell from 1,938 to 1,181, a reduction of 39 per cent. In the same period the number of patients receiving convalescent treatment under contractual arrangements also decreased by approximately 37 per cent from 17,786 to 11,276. Rehabilitation for mentally handicapped patients in hospital 20. Hospital rehabilitation for mentally handicapped patients necessarily takes a different form from the rehabilitation programme for physically disabled people. In hospitals for the mentally handicapped, the aim is to provide assess- ment and training, which in the case of the most able patients will stabilise them and enable them to live in the community. This is achieved by making the hospital a self-contained community with a wide range of workshops, recreational and social facilities. Earnings are intended to act as an incentive towards rehabilitation and while the majority of mentally handicapped patients remain in hospital for many years, an increasing number leave hospital daily to work in the community, and ultimately are discharged to live in the com- munity. Rehabilitation for mentally ill patients in psychiatric hospitals 21. Rehabilitation facilities for mentally ill patients in psychiatric hospitals are directed towards prevention of personality deterioration. In this connection the concept of the therapeutic community is widely adopted, and this has resulted in more effective rehabilitation. The majority of psychiatric hospitals operate industrial therapy units as a step towards the total rehabilitation of patients and also for those patients who are only able to work in sheltered conditions.