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.

    229/284 (page 203)
    15 June, 1926. ] 3336. So that really you could not call them nursesP—I call them nurse com- panions; they like the term. 3337. I do not quite know what the term nurse companion means?—They hke to put on nurse’s dress; perhaps that is the best way of saying it. 8338. They pose as nurses?—Yes; they like to put on nurse’s dress and go out in nurse’s dress, but I do not think their of that sort. If I had a serious case, | should probably telephone up to London and get a specially qualified nurse down, as I have done many times. 3339. From the aspect of the public, they would probably think they were really trained nurses when they are out 3340. But they would probably regard them as nurses, and possibly the patients may regard them as nurses ?—Possibly they do, if they think anything about it. 3341. I understood in your answer to the Chairman that you had no real objection to the registration of such homes, and not much objection to the inspection, provided it were tactfully done; but you have the idea that medical men havihg a home like this should be exempt; that they are capable of looking after their own patients, and also capable of knowing what is right and what is wrong ?—That is about it. 3042. Would you say that all doctors are honourable men?—Well, I think you said I need not answer questions unless I liked. That is one I object to answering. 3343. You think that serious cases might happen where inspection might be advisable?—Well, that would be the same thing, would it not—well, yes; if you like the answer, I will say yes. 3344. In that case it might be difficult to decide who should be inspected and who should notP—Yes, undoubtedly. 3345. Do you think it would be better in that case to say that all doctors should be inspected?—I think probably those who should be inspected would be very few, and it seems hard lines to make all the others suffer for the sake of one or 3346. But would they suffer P—I should not like a man coming to my house and own guests. I should consider it rather interfered with my liberty unless you made it by law. 203 [ Continued. 3347. That is the only way it could be done?—Of course, if you made it by law we should have to put up with it. 3348. The idea of this Committee is to find the arguments for and the arguments against P—Quite so. 3349. What I am anxious to get is what your real arguments against it would be? —My simple argument is that in a case like mine, it is quite useless, and I think it will only upset the people, and there 1s no reason why it should be done. That is in my own case, mind you. I do not really oppose the thing entirely. To put it in very plain words, I feel that it would be an infernal nuisance. 5000. | gather that what you are afraid of is the method of inspection and not the actual inspection ?—I do not want a notice put up outside my door that lL keep a nursing home or anything of that kind, or have a thing put up in my hall to say that the patients are inspected periodically, if that is the idea of the law. I do not know what the law is to be, so I cannot answer any questions upon that. If you tell me what it is to be, lL might perhaps tell you better what I think of it. I hope I am not rude or anything; I do not intend to be that. 3351. I quite understand. A sugges- tion has been made that the difficulty might be got over by any medical man who wished to take a patient or patients in his home as paying guests or paying patients getting a certificate signed by two of his professional brethren that he was a competent and fit and proper per- son, and that would do away with the idea of inspection; would that appeal to youP—You mean to certify that I was a fit and proper person? 3352. Two of your professional brethren will send a letter to the Registration authorities that Dr. Underhill was a fit and proper person to receive patients into his home, and in that case the home would not need inspection ?—Oh, yes; certainly. 3353. You think that would be quite satisfactory P—To me it would. 3354. You would not object to that?— Not a bit. It is only to say that I am a decent man; that is what it comes to I suppose. 3355. That is everything ?—Yes—well I should not object to that. 3356. So far as I can see, your objec- tion is not really so much to the regis- tration and inspection as to see that your patients are not interfered with or