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]
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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.

    94/448 page 72
    19 February, 1957.] Dre EAN: (Continued. I think that voluntary spirit can be en- hanced by having a House Committee whose job it is to look after its one hos- pital. That House Committee can then get together its friends and it forms a league of friends for that hospital. That hospital becomes their own hospital, in their own small way, but I think it is very important. Mrs. Hill. 668. Would Mr. Agnew agree, too, that from House Committees they can also co-opt a member on to the Committee, as distinct from the League of Friends, and from among those people very often it is possible to collect some of the sort of people you have been talking about? ——Yes, very definitely. When we come to select an H.M.C., one of the first things we look for is whether there is anyone on the list who has given some of his time to one of the hospitals in the Group; in other words, if a person has been serving on a House Committee for Hospital A for five or six years, I think we are always apt, not to favour that person, but to look upon that per- son as being the right type to promote from that House Committee on to an H.M.C. Chairman. 669. The point I was trying to estab- lish was that you do feel it is of vital importance that every H.M.C., and, if possible, every House Committee, should have one or more members who are placed there because of their commercial or financial or professional experience? I would agree absolutely and en- tirely with that, but I would place much greater emphasis on the H.M.C. than I would on the House Committee. The House Committee has not got the power to deal with finance. 670. I think you have _ already answered this before. You are satisfied that each H.M.C. has such a member? Yes. Mr. Holt. 671. Would you think there is a danger that if it became generally thought that you had to serve on a House Committee before being appointed to a Management Committee it would make it particularly difficult for you some- times to promote people from outside? For instance, many of the people you promote to be actually Chairman in many cases must be people who have lived in an extraordinarily busy life until they have retired. Then they find they would like to use their qualities in a hospital, and very often they are the sort of people you would like to make Chairmen. But if this idea got about, people might say, “ Why has this person suddenly been made Chairman? We have worked all these years, and this man is being pushed in by Mr. Agnew. It is all wrong’? I think it would be very dangerous if it got about that appointment from a House Committee to an H.M.C. was automatic, because, in the end, that would mean that the mem- bers appointed to the H.M.C. were appointed by the H.M.C. themselves, which is wrong. An appointment to an H.M.C. must be by the Board. But I do say that if we find there is a person giving work and time to a hospital, we look upon that person as being the right type to go on to an H.M.C. But I agree with you that it would be fatal if it got round as being the recognised practice. I do not know whether that answers your question ? Mr. Holt.] Yes; thank you. Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett. 672. Going back to an earlier question that was asked of you concerning the appointment of officers, particularly Treasurers and Secretaries, why do you suggest it is necessary for the H.M.C.s, for example, to appoint their own officers, merely because they are statu- tory bodies, bearing in mind that a Minister of the Crown, for example, does not appoint the senior officials in his department, or a commiander-in-chief in the Army does not appoint his com- manding officers in the regiments under him? My answer to that would be that I do not think I should be very happy if I felt that my senior officers, with whom I have to work very closely and see every day, were appointed by a completely outside body without my knowing. 673. It was found, I think, by Glad- stone, to be necessary to introduce what we now call the Civil Service as public expenditure reached bigger levels. Why do not the arguments that led Gladstone to form a regular Civil Service apply with equal force to a great public spend- ing organisation such as the National
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