Sixth report from the Select Committee on Estimates : together with the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committee D and appendices, session 1956-1957: Running costs of hospitals.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Estimates
- Date:
- [1957]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Sixth report from the Select Committee on Estimates : together with the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committee D and appendices, session 1956-1957: Running costs of hospitals. Source: Wellcome Collection.
33/448 page 11
![29 January, 1957.] [Continued. Health, called in and examined. Chairman. 1. I thought we would just prepare the ground by going through this Memorandum which, no doubt, you have in front of you. With regard to paragraph 1, could you elaborate a little about the phrase “all reasonable require- ments”, which is rather a key phrase? ——(Mr. Pater.) I am not sure that I can elaborate this very helpfully. This is, I think, precisely quoting the words of the Act of 1946, and, so far as I know, successive Ministers have always interpreted it as meaning in practice that their obligation was to provide such ser- vices as they reasonably could in the circumstances obtaining, financial and otherwise. 2. In fact, it really means very little. It is just a phrase? It is imprecise. (Mr. Marre.) It ought perhaps to be read in the context of the Minister’s obligation under section 1 of the Act to secure the provision of a comprehen- sive health service. 3. With regard to paragraph 2, will the ex-Ministry of Pensions hospitals continue to be directly administered by the Minister? (Mr. Pater.) The posi- tion there is that certain of these hospitals have already been transferred to the administration of the appropriate Regional Board and Hospital Manage- ment Committee. There are at present still four of these hospitals directly administered by the Minister. In the Government White Paper issued at the time of the transfer of functions from the Ministry of Pensions, it was said that it was the intention, as time went on and as circumstances permitted, to bring the administration of these hospitals within the National Health Service. That, in fact, is what has been happening. As the war pensioners’ demands on these hospitals has fallen it has been thought appropriate to transfer their administra- tion to what has in effect become the major user, that is the local Regional Hospital Board or Hospital Management Committee. 4. And it is a permanent arrange- ment ?——- Yes. 39949 Mr. Willis. 5. Might I ask, in addition to that, does that also apply to the provision about artificial limbs and _ invalid vehicles? No. 6. It is not proposed to transfer those? ——That question has not yet arisen. Chairman. 7. In paragraph 3 you use the words “conveniently be associated with a university having a School of Medicine ”’. How are the Regional Boards’ services associated with the Schools of Medicine : what collaboration is there between the Boards and Schools of Medicine? There, I think, the picture differs con- siderably as between London and the provinces. In taking as a random example the Birmingham region, shall we say, one tends to find that the hospital services of that region focus naturally on the Birmingham teaching centre. One finds, for example, that certain highly specialised forms of treatment for the whole region will be provided at the teaching hospital centre. There are links of other kinds. The membership of the Regional Hospital Board includes medical and other people from the university concerned, and, conversely, the governing body of the teaching hospital includes members nominated by the Regional Hospital Board. So at what one might call the formal administrative level, the management level, there is interlocking membership, and at the level of the actual provision of services there is an interlocking between the teaching centre and the non-teaching hospital ser- vices provided by the Regional Hospital Board, with the teaching centre provid- ing a sort of natural focus for the hospital services for the region as a whole. 8. But that is not so in London? In London the position is rather different, because there are so many _ teaching hospitals, both under-graduate and post- graduate, and there is not, I think, the same close link between any particular teaching hospital and a particular region in which it happens to be, though there is, it is probably fair to say, an increasing B](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32182466_0033.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
