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.
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![[Continued. experience to indicate whether there is any real substantial difference between income, expenditure, receipts and payments as you have seen it so far?—(Mr. Edwards.) Certainly there are differences. On the question of Whitley awards, the arrears may be set up as liabilities in the preceding year, and then a mere summation of the income and expenditure budget for the next '.. year . will....not. show... us...our total requirements. We are having to make special requests to all the Boards for any indication of differences in cash requirements from the total of their income and expenditure budgets. 106. So that they are not going to give you in fact a receipts and payments budget but to indicate any major differences that there would be in the income and expendi- ture account?—Yes, that is so. Mr. Turton. 107. Do you find that their income esti- mates tend to be accurate? Take item 32, for example, “From Patients—Single Rooms, etc.”. They give an estimate of what patients are going to spend next year on that. Do you find that varies very much in the revised estimates for next year?— They are reasonably accurate. Chairman. 108. There are two small questions I[ would like to ask you in order to clear up points in your Memorandum. First of all, in paragraph 3 (a) you deal with the income from the endowments fund. I do not think that the amount of that income is anywhere available ; I do not think it appears in the estimates, and you do not give it here. Could you let us have a note of that?— (Sir William Douglas.) Yes. It is about £600,000. We will certainly let you have a note. Mr. Turton.] Could you also give us a note on (a), (b). (c) and (d), the ‘four items of income, so that we can see exactly how far it goes? Chairman. 109. I think (b), (c) and (d) are included as grants in aid in the Estimates?—Yes. 110. Of course, it is only given in totals, and (a) is not shown in the grant-in-aid?— (Mr. Edwards.) It is shown in a separate publication of the Endowment Fund. under Section 56 of the Act. Mr. Turton. 111. And (b), (c) and (d) only come in together as one total?—Yes. Chairman. 112. If you could conveniently show us the break-up of that we should be very grateful?—(Sir William Douglas.) Yes. 113. Then there is one small point which needs amplification, at the bottom of page 3, under the heading “Estimates of the Hospital Authorities’, where you say: ‘“ In both cases the forms include a separate and detailed estimate of the cost of central administration of the hospital authority”. Could you say what you mean by “ central” in that connection?—(Mr. Edwards.) To take the example of the Hospital Manage- ment Committee, which is controlling a group of hospitals and has an office for the purpose, the administrative expenditure is the expenditure of that central office. If the Hospital Management Committee con- sists simply of an organisation for running one hospital, that administrative expenditure will be included in the hospital expenditure and not shown separately. We have not asked for apportionments in cases of that kind. 114. The normal arrangement would be a group of hospitals so that in effect ~when you speak of administrative expenses in this connection you tend to refer merely to the administrative expenses required to run the group as a whole?—Yes. 115. And the administrative expenses, which may be very considerable in in- dividual units of the group. are not included. Are figures available to distinguish those administrative expenses?—-No, Sir, because it is so difficult to know where administra- tion begins and ends and where medical organisation begins and ends. The officers at the individual hospitals are doctors, nurses and so forth; they are not primarily administrators. The administrators are in the Group office, away from the hospital, and that is the administrative expenditure which we show separately. Miss Ward. 116. Is not that provided for in 1 (vii) under “Other Staff’”?—No, this estimate is the estimate of the cost of a particular hospital; it is the basic document from each hospital. Then they are all sum- marised into the estimates of the Hospital Management Group, and it is there that you get shown the separate administrative salaries of that group. Mr J. Enoch Powell. 117. And it would be possible to take out 1 (vii) (a) both for regional and national? —(Sir William Douglas.) It would phe very onerous work, but it could be one. Chairman. 118. Would that be a very onerous task, to arrive at that figure? You have a total of between 300 and 400?—I am told it means going through something like 3,000:](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32182478_0048.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
