Organisation of air raid casualties services / issued by the Home Office (Air Raid Precautions Department).

Date:
1938
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Organisation of air raid casualties services / issued by the Home Office (Air Raid Precautions Department). Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/36 (page 4)
    5. Financial Aspects. As indicated in the Introduction, the first stages in the preparation of local schemes are mainly in the direction of the framing of plans and the training of personnel. The immediate expenditure to be met by local authorities should be practically confined, therefore, to matters of organisation and administration. The schemes should be drawn up on the assumption that before the time came for incurring heavy expenditure an equitable appor- tionment of cost between national and local funds, as foreshadowed in paragraph 7 of the Home Office (or Scottish Office) circular of the 9th July, 1935, would be adopted, after consultation with repre- sentatives of local authorities. As indicated in paragraph 9 of the same circular, the Government will make arrangements for the supply of respirators, protective clothing and bleaching powder for the services covered by this Memorandum. (This will be supple- mentary to the general issue of respirators to the civil population at large.) PART IT.—SCHEME FOR A COUNTY BOROUGH. The organisation outlined in this Part would be equally appro- priate if adjacent county districts were included in the county borough scheme. 6. Outline of Organisation in a County Borough. An official should be deputed to have general charge of the casualties organisation, and his first duty should be to prepare, in consultation with others as necessary, an | appropriate scheme. The organisation should include— (a) First aid parties available to be despatched to any place where air raid casualties occurred. » (b) First aid posts to which persons with comparatively minor injuries, or suffering slightly from gas, or with con- taminated clothing, could walk or be carried for treat- ment and, if necessary, change of clothing. (c) ‘‘ Casualty clearing hospitals ’’ to which more serious cases could be taken by ambulance and, if not fit for imme- diate transfer to base hospitals, detained and treated. (d) ‘‘ Base hospitals ’’, situated, so far as possible, outside areas of special danger, for cases evacuated from casualty clearing hospitals. (Separate base hospitals may be impracticable in some cases.) (e) An ambulance service for use in conjunction with first aid parties and for the movement of stretcher cases from first aid posts to casualty clearing hospitals and from casualty clearing hospitals to base hospitals.