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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![25 January, 1951] [Continued. understand a doctor’s terminology and so on, but much of her work is administrative inasmuch as she arranges appointments, arranges documents, marshals patients and so on; not all her work is strictly profes- sional in the medical sense. Mr. J. Enoch Powell. 235. To what do you attribute in that case the increase in personnel, because that increase would not appear to be con- nected with the organisation of hospital services?—I attribute it to the installation of what I regard as an inefficient appoint- ments system and to the fact that we have now lost in the hospitals our spirit of volun- tary service which existed. We now work for a session. We do so many cases instead of carrying on until the work is done. We work until we have done our allotted span. The secretary arranges an allotted number of cases for us to deal with. Chairman. 236. You say that the swelling of the administrative staff is not purely on the organisational side; it is right through?— In the medical secretariat of which I was speaking I was rather in a special category. Mr. Diamond. 237. Doctor Hill I think has been quot- ing Mr. Barnes to us in fact?—(Dr. Rowland Hill.) Yes. 238. Could I ask whether Mr. Barnes has given you any figures showing the pro- portionate increase in the clerical staff and the proportionate increase in all other forms of staff in the hospital?—-No, he has not. My conversation with Mr. Barnes was entirely his statement to me of an increase in his own staff in his own department. 239. Could I ask whether he has given you any figures with regard, for example, to the increased numbers of clerical workers who keep the records of the out-patients’ department, and whether that has had any effect on the queues in the out-patients’ department or improved the efficiency of the Service in regard to enabling doctors and consultants to treat out-patients?—He gave me no such analysis of the figures. There was only his general attitude towards the matter. With regard to the figure he looked upon it as a wasteful increase in staff, which he would have avoided had he the power. Mr. Thomas Reid. 240. With regard to the alleged huge in- crease in staff—there is an increase | dare- say—is it because the clerical workers have not got enough to do or is it due to the fact that they have got increased duties under the new system?—I should have said it was a bit of both. Before the war, both in local authority hospitals and in volun- tary hospitals, the expenditure of every penny was watched very closely. There was a sense of stringency, and staffs were kept down. Now I think in my experience there has been an increase in staff, and many staffs are not worked as hard as they were before the war, but also there has been a great increase in what in my opinion is repetitive work, which with greater efficiency could be avoided. 241. Unnecessary | work?—Unnecessary work. For example, in the hospital group where I am a member of the management committee there is no doubt that there is an excessive amount of committee work. It is not necessary, but it is done because I think some of the people have a lot of spare time and to have frequent committee meetings gives them a sense of authority. To give you one example, the paper upon which committee minutes are duplicated for this one small hospital group, serving a population of 200,000 people, costs £300 a year. That ison paper alone. There seems to me to be a great waste there, which could be, and should be, cut down. In that same hospital group before the war the cooking was well done in the main hos- pitals with a smallish staff. There has been an extraordinary increase in that staff recently for no good reason at all. For example, the resident staff in the hospital used to be looked after by a group of very skilful and talented maids who made their beds, cleaned their bedrooms and served them at meals. For no good reason at all those maids, the same in number, still look after the bedrooms of the resident staff but they are not allowed to wait at table, and therefore a fresh staff of about a dozen girls in black uniform have all been engaged solely as waitresses. Those are just little examples of the sort of waste which has crept in. 242. I assume those staff did not come without being requested. Who asked for this extra staff?—I have no doubt they were asked for by the official appointed in charge of this department. 243. And the committee above the official granted the request, and they appealed to the Minister for the money?— That is the sort of procedure, yes. Chairman. 244. I do not want to put questions to you which are outside the medical ambit, but I think it would be extremely valuable to the Sub-Committee if you could say whether you have considered in the British Medical Association how you should divide the administrative cost. I do not know. whether you have given that matter any attention, but there have been allegations made in many quarters that the purely administrative expense of running a hospitai.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32182478_0062.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
