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.
89/348 page 49
![8 February, 1951.] [Continued. would involve quite a considerable expendi- ture over and above the £8,000,000?—Yes. 516. It might be as much again?—It might be. 517. But that would be a _ guess?—I should say it would be at least fifty per cent. more. I should say it would take another £4,000,000 easily, probably more. Today a lot of our hospitals are very old. For example, if you take the Sheffield Royal Infirmary which does not happen to be one of our hospitals, it is supervised by the Board of Governors, the first part was built one hundred and fifty years ago, and there are substantial portions of it one hundred years old. No hospital of that age can really fulfil modern requirements. You can try to improve it; you can probably do very, very good work there, but it is not a modern hospital. If we are going to modernise all the hospitals, which means doing away with these old poor law insti- tutions, then obviously that is a very sub- stantial expenditure of capital indeed. 518. I was not really meaning to go as far as that: 1 will put what I meant this way, to provide enough beds to put an end to the serious waiting lists?—-I have never considered the question. The waiting lists are very substantial. but I have never con- sidered that question. Miss Ward. 519. What is the estimated expenditure -for your mental deficiency scheme which has just been approved?—I have not brought the scheme with me, I am sorry. It is a fifteen-year scheme. It is divided into three sections—five years, ten years and fifteen years. I really cannot charge my memory with the figures either as to accommodation or possible cost. Chairman. 520. It 1s a phased scheme?—Yes. 521. And it has been approved?—By the Minister. 522. You have every reason to suppose that it will be carried out in accordance with the approved scheme?—Yes, but the periods will now be altered because of re-armament, civil defence and that sort of thing. Mr. J. Enoch Powell. 523. Have you been told that?—No, but one reads the newspapers. Miss Ward. 524. From what you say does that then mean you do not think your Region will be sufficiently well equipped for mental patients until the expiration of fifteen years?—I should think the answer is “Yes”, I think so. The need for mental deficiency institutions has not been appre- ciated quite as much as it ought to have been. The result is that there has not been this accommodation provided. In addition ten years of war has stopped the provision of these institutions. One was started by the County Council before the war, and we are just resuming the work; that was commenced twelve years ago. Mr. J. Enoch Powell. 525. While Sir Basil has mentioned mental provision could I ask him to clear up a point in the memorandum at the bottom of page 8 where it says, “By the division of the West Riding of Yorkshire between the two Boards, the effect has been that the accommodation available in the Sheffield Region for mental and _ tuber- culosis patients is appreciably less than the accommodation within the Leeds Region in proportion to the population”, and then it goes on, “The position thus arises that the Sheffield Board are being continually pressed by the Leeds Board to remove patients in their hospitals to hospitals in the Region of the Sheffield Board”? That seems to be the opposite of what one would deduce. If I have made the point clear, it seems to be upside down?—It is not intended to be upside down. The posi- tion is this: before the appointed day mental hospitals were provided by the West Riding of Yorkshire Mental Hospitals Board. Sheffield was a constituent authority without any power of withdrawal, and that explains it. Hospitals which were pro- vided happened to be in the area which is allocated to the Leeds Region, and we have only one of the hospitals in Sheffield. 526. That does seem to be a case where the boundaries are having a very appre- cilable administrative effect?—-That criticism I tried to meet by saying boundaries did not matter since the appointed day. This difficulty arose before the appointed day. If there had been no Act of Parliament there would not have been any problem. Chairman. 527. I think it might be convenient to go from there, before we deal with any questions of finance, to the question of the hospital management committees which are subordinate hospital authorities to you. That would be a fair way of putting it, would it not?—I do not think they would accept that. The Board appoint the chairman and the members, but beyond that the Committees regard themselves as entirely independent subject only to receiving their finance pro- visions through the Board. 528. I think we shall have to go into that in some detail. It is a very important question?—It is. They regard themselves as independent bodies. .](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32182478_0089.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
