Report from the Select Committee on Nursing Homes (Registration).

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Nursing Homes (Registration)
Date:
1926
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report from the Select Committee on Nursing Homes (Registration). Source: Wellcome Collection.

    112/284 (page 86)
    CO o> { 22 April, 1926.] [ Continued. they would be far better off, but it seems to me that there ought to be some- thing between the two. Dr. Vernon Davies. 1393. Miss Crookenden, I wanted if possible to view the question, not from the point of view of your own nursing home, but of nursing homes generally. I know it- is very difficult?—(Miss Orookenden.) It is rather, because I do not know much about the others. 1394. I understood you to take a very strong objection to the case book; that the patients must not be known by any- body inquiring, or what is the matter, or what had been done. I want you to visualise a bad nursing home, a home taking in maternity cases having a rather unfortunate number of abortions or mis- carriages. How are you going to check that, if there is no record kept, and during the year you had 12 cases of con- finement and every child was born dead, or every case was a miscarriage, as may happen in some of these unfortunate homes? Jf you have no record, how are you going to check it, or find out the abuse ?—I do not object to any record being kept, but I do not think the patients’ names and addresses should be open to inspection by people coming in. 1395. I understood you to object to the nature of the complaint and what had been done; that there should be no record kept of what the patient was suffering from? TI do not think the com- plaint matters so much, provided the name is not before it. Chairman. 1396. You said you would have the initials, would you not?—You would know then whether there was an abnormal number. : Dr. Vernon Davies. 1397. You do not object to the diagnosis and treatment?—I do not mind the diagnosis, provided the patient’s name is not before it. Chairman. 1398. So that you cannot say it of a definite person ?—So that you cannot say that ‘‘so and so is in the home, and so and so is in the home.”? That is what I think one should be careful over. Major Price. 1599. Would you make a difference in what is put on this particular register in those cases where no doctor is in attendance?—I_ really do not know, because I have never had a patient with- out a doctor in attendance. 1400. Of course the homes really that We are getting at are perhaps those where there is one doctor to ten patients ?—Yes. Mr. Cecil Wilson. 1401. I would like to put this case. It is not a case that deals with your par- ticular class of home, but it is the case that comes up to us here; a fully quali-. fied midwife holding the OC.M.B. certificate practises midwifery and owns a nursing home. For several years suspicion of malpractices in connection with this midwife; exceedingly difficult to get proof. Here is a case where the Medical Officer of Health and the woman inspector attempted to get something done. There were cases in which whilst they might go and see them in the home, if anything really needed doing, before action could be taken these cases had gone to an area outside and they could not trace them at all. If there is no name and no address, how are some of these undesirable homes to be got at? I am not speaking of your class of home? —I do not know. Major Price. 1402. I take it your objection really is to having public inspection of such a register?—I am looking at it from the patient’s point of view entirely. They go there for privacy. (Miss Scott.) Of course there would be the register in the home always. Ohairman. 1403. Taking into consideration the general value of registration and in- spection for all nursing homes, would you not be able to sink that rather small difficulty P—(Miss Crookenden.) I only suggested that it wants to be very care- fully compiled. Dr. Shiels. 1404. Might I ask one last question. Am I right in regard to the hours for