Eleventh report from the Select Committee on Estimates : together with the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committee E and appendices, session 1950-1951: regional hospital boards and hospital management committees.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Estimates
- Date:
- [1951]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Eleventh report from the Select Committee on Estimates : together with the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committee E and appendices, session 1950-1951: regional hospital boards and hospital management committees. Source: Wellcome Collection.
100/348 page 60
![8 February, 1951.] [Continued. would be a rather good idea if you had such an example. (Specimen hospital estimates are handed to the Sub-Committee.) 683. I think it is a very good idea for you to leave them with us, because we are bound to be dealing with this subject as soon as we meet again?—I will also leave a list of the hospital management com- mittees, and you will find on each page the number of beds which each management committee controls. I thought that would give you an idea as to size. You will find they vary a good deal. (Document is handed to Sub-Committee.) One final document is a list of members of the Board, with their addresses. It will show how they are distributed throughout the Region. (Document is handed to the Sub- Committee.) Wing Commander Geoffrey Cooper. Mr. Diamond. Mr. J. Enoch Powell. Mr. Thomas Reid. Mr. Turton. Miss Ward. further examined. Chairman. 684. Sir Basil, before we take up the running where we left off the other day, I think there is ‘a point still to be cleared up on this question of capital expenditure. I am not certain there was not some mis- understanding in our consideration of that. On reading the evidence it seemed to me that you might be saying this: where capital expenditure is proposed you have to take two steps. The first is to obtain approval by the Ministry of Health to any proposed expenditure?—(Sir Basil Gibson.) Yes, 685. I suppose on the question of priority, that is to say as between one particular item and another particular item proposed by you?—That would be later on. All proposals then go to the Minister of Health for approval as proposals. We put them on one side until we are ready to get an allocation of capital, and then we select them and submit them to the ‘Minister for priority, but they have been previously approved, that is to say the proposal as such must be approved. If one waited until the priority stage one would then have to delay. 686. For the moment, disregarding those details ?—There are two steps, you are perfectly correct. 687. There are two nets through which you have got to get, one the Ministry of Health net and the other is what one might call broadly the Treasury net, that is to say the expenditure as expenditure within the national net?—That is between the Minister of Health and the Treasury and not between the Regional Board and the Minister of Health. 688. Are you suggesting that where, for example, you find you cannot proceed with putting up a wing involving the use of bricks and mortar and instead you wish to switch and put up a heating system in- volving the use of copper and similar materials, and where the amount is less than, say, £10,000, you should be able to go forward with the switched scheme without getting any further approval at all? —Yes, provided the proposal has already been approved by the (Minister and has been included in the list of proposals that have been approved for priority. Mr. Diamond. approval is an approval as a good hospital](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32182478_0100.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
