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.

    98/448 page 76
    19 February, 1957.] DEAE N: [Continued. Yes. 707. That is just up to you. Have you any knowledge of any other Regional Boards doing the same? No. 708. Surely there is a lacuna here, is there not, that it should be left to one Regional Board with sufficient initiative to start this? (Mr. Gibbon.) May I comment on this? This whole subject is a very big one, and is a matter of con- siderable concern to all hospital authori- ties and has been for some time past. The Ministry of Health recently, follow- ing the publication of the Guillebaud Report, took up the paragraph which you read a few moments ago and issued a circular to hospital authorities on the subject. 706. Creating a service? 709. Do you mean Regional Boards? Regional Boards, Boards of Governors, Hospital Management Com- mittees, on the need for the training and improvement of prospects of promising young men and women who come into hospital administration as a career. One of the most important paragraphs of this circular deals with the pooling of resources between different types of authority. 710. Within the same Region? Within the same Region, yes. Indeed, tomorrow we have another committee which will be meeting to consider this very matter, of how we can produce the set of mechanics which will pool the resources of the whole of the Manchester Region, including the Regional Board. the Hospital Management Committees and the Boards of Governors, in relation to vacancies which occur in_ the administration. 711. Creating a profession which would offer prospects of promotion, which would start with suitable training and emerge into being, as I say, a pro- fession ? That is true. What we are trying to do is this. At the present moment, the hospital authorities in themselves are too small to offer the appropriate prospects to a young man of calibre and ambition, but if we get together and throw all our vacancies into a pool, we will thereby enhance the pros- pects of promotion to the worthy and ambitious young man, and we remove a lot of artificial barriers which have been created through the development of Hospital Management Committees, Regional Boards and _ Boards’. of Governors as water-tight compartments. 712. You are still painting a picture to me of something which is up to the Region to take up or not, according to its wishes ; and, even when it has been done, each Region will be in a water- tight compartment? It is looking rather a long way ahead. We would hope that once we have this Regional pooling, there might be inter-Regional pooling. It might develop even further. 713. But, you see, these are just the sorts of thing this Sub-Committee has to consider, and I am sure you would agree that the efficiency and calibre of the technical and administrative staff has a most important bearing on the financial efficiency, apart from anything else, of the Hospital Service? I must agree entirely. 714. Perhaps making a difference of millions of pounds. So that it should not be left to the goodwill and capability of individual Regional Boards to do this or not, as they like? I should like your views on that? (Mr. Agnew.) I think we ought to mention this new training scheme which has come in. Manchester University is doing half the training, and the College in London is doing the other half. I think they have only 16 trainees at the moment. 715. What sort of posts would they fill?-——They are selected by a Commit- tee. The ex-Vice Chancellor of Man- chester University, Sir John Stopford, is Chairman, and they select candidates from far and wide. Half of them get their training via the Manchester Univer- sity and some come to us and so go to other Boards. It is a three year training period. 716. They would be secretaries and treasurers? Yes, mostly, I should say. (Mr. Gibbon.) They have been picked on the basis that they have sufficient intel- lectual calibre eventually to reach the top in administration in the Hospital Service. 717. How would you rate “the top” in the Manchester Region? In Hospital Management Committees they would be Group Secretaries? Yes, precisely. 718. Perhaps they would start as hos- pital secretaries? Yes, and perhaps finance officers.
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