[Report 1958] / Medical Officer of Health, Essex County Council.

  • Essex County Council
Date:
1958
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1958] / Medical Officer of Health, Essex County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    119/146 (page 117)
    the Trust has set aside the necessary capital. This, of course, takes no account of the Harlow Hospital itself, the construction of which has already begun. In round figures, expenditure up to date has been :— £ Nuffield House 24,000 Sydenham House 24,000 Osier House 12,000 Keats House 32,000 Edinburgh House 18,600 Addison House, Bentham House, Chadwick House, Galen House 84,000 £194,600 These figures include site costs, architects' and quantity surveyors’ fees, and, in most parts of the buildings, furnishing and equipment. The final figure for the entire project is likely to be just over a quarter of a million pounds. To see this figure in proper perspective, it is worth noting that it is just over one-eighth of the cost of the future Harlow Hospital. In this great undertaking, the Harlow Development Corporation hsLS acted as managing agent for the Trust, and the buildings have been designed by the corporation’s own architects or by nominated architects working under general corporation instructions. Ownership is retained by the Trust through its agency the Nuffield Health and Social Services Fund. All users (general practitioners, dentists, local health and education authority, regional hospital board, and industrial health service) pay rents of 6% of the capital cost, calculated on the basis of the floor area occupied ; from these rents the Trust j has to meet costs of landlord’s maintenance, minor improvements, and building management. Thus the net return is something over 4% on the capital invested. Users pay for lighting, heating, cleaning, and the usual rate charges. They provide their own secretarial and ancillary help, but the Essex County Council allows the general practitioners to make use of the services of the home nurses, health visitors, and midwives in the centres, to their mutual benefit. Three of the area health centres—Nuffield, Sydenham, and Osier Houses —have already been described.* In this paper, the remaining buildings, except Edinburgh House, will be dealt with. How the Job Has Been Dene. The Harlow health-services plan has been evolved step by step, starting with small-scale trials and embodying the lessons learnt at each stage. The fund of experience and wisdom available at Nuffield Lodge has guided the * Taylor, C., Busby, J. C., Huntley, J. D., Meyrick, ]., Findlater, A. G. C., Dyakowski, S., Keen, M. M., Bracewell, R. E., Robson, T. G., Stewart, G. G., Brown, F. G., Taylor, S. Lancet, 1955, ii, 863.