Seventh report from the Select Committee on Estimates : together with the proceedings of the committee on 25th May, the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committee D and appendices, session 1948-49 : the administration of the national health services.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Estimates
Date:
1949
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Seventh report from the Select Committee on Estimates : together with the proceedings of the committee on 25th May, the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committee D and appendices, session 1948-49 : the administration of the national health services. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    15 March, 1949.) © [Continued. the Regional Hospital Board work. That is bound up very very closely with capital expenditure. One of the first things we say to a Hospital Management Committee when they make a request for money is, how does it dovetail into the scheme? We are very much handicapped. We know we have no money to spend and that, if we had the money, we have not the materials. There is a tremendous lot of work that can be done. It is the sort of thing that has no ceiling to it at all. There is no end to what you can do in the hospitals. We have only just begun on things like cancer and T.B. and plastic surgery and things like that. We are desperately short of T.B. beds and this, that and the other, so that is one of the most disappointing things about running a Regional Hospital Board: you know that you are inevitably frustrated. It is nobody’s fault. You can- not go on spending money ad lib and getting preference all the time for this, that and the other, and [I should say it is a thing that concerns me personally more than any other facet of the whole business. Chairman. 1121. I think we shall be able to pursue this more effectively on the preparation of the estimates of that year; it really does arise in that connection. It is getting rather late to embark on that question now. It is extraordinarily valuable to the Sub- Committee to have representative witnesses brought together like this, so that you can, so to speak, add to and subtract from what each other says. I would like to suggest that we meet again next Tuesday, though I appreciate that in the case of the Scottish representatives it might be very ‘incon- venient.—(Sir Frederick Alban.) We can come. (Sir Alexander MacGregor.) 1 think we can manage it, too. Chairman.]| Thank you. very much, gentlemen. Mr. Kirby. Mr. Kenneth Lindsay. examined. Chairman. 1122. Gentlemen, it is very good indeed ‘lof you to return in such force. I hope we ‘Ishall be able to dispose of this part of the ‘Inquiry today. First of all, I think it might ‘tbe useful if we were to deal with a paper which has been submitted to us by the ‘Western Regional Hospital Board _ for tScotland.* Is the paper in the hands of ‘ithe other witnesses?—(Mr. Julian.) We ‘have just seen it. } 1123. Sir Alexander, I do not know if 'jthere is anything that you_or Mr. Scarth ‘jwould like to say in amplification of these * See -Annex 2. Mr. Selwyn Lloyd. tables which you have sent to us. It might be convenient, I think, if you would explain how you arrive at the two columns headed “Composite Rate”? — (Sir Alexander MacGregor.) I think that Mr. Scarth, as the author of this, might explain it more accurately than I can. (Mr. Scarth.) Mr. Taylor’s postscript to myself in his letter suggests that I might be asked to explain this system. 1124. If you would?—Of course, but it is not really a system; it is really a principle, the principle being that in Scot- land we do do this internal audit; in other
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