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

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Nursing Homes (Registration)
Date:
1926
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

    234/284 (page 208)
    15 June, 1926. ] Das country than by a multitude of inspec- tors that would cost the country such a lot of money; that is my point. 3410. But just consider this, that if what is proposed is carried out, these nursing homes will not be in existence unless they are registered, and before they are registered they will have to be inspected, and one of the conditions will probably be that a certain minimum of nursing efficiency will be provided. We quite recognise the fact that our conditions may be such as to drive some of these nursing homes out of existence, and some of us think that would not be a bad thing, and that these people would be far better off in a public institution than in a private home where the amount that they pay was so small that they cannot be effectively attended to?— Yes. 3411. So that is a possible result of our suggestion, and I think you will agree quite a promising one from the point of what you would require your- self?—That part of it is rather laudable in a way, I think, if you have cases of that sort, 3412. Oh yes; there are definitely cases of that sort?—Nobody would mind even a doctor’s place being registered in a way if it did not involve other things. You know perfectly well that once you start and have registration and inspection it is like the Police Force; it tends to grow; you do not know where it is going to stop. 3413. But if you have evidence to show that certain abuses, and very serious abuses, are in existence, which inspection might minimise or remove, surely an objection to the snowball character of reform is not a very valid one. Then with regard to your. objection to bureaucracy, supposing although you did not hke the idea of the Medical Officer of Health it was merely an addition to the duties of an official who already existed and did not mean any new ap- pointment, you could not really say it was any increase of the extent of bureaucracy’—No; but every doctor is himself an authority on sanitation—at least, he has to pass his examinations. 3414. I accept the second statement.— Well, you have got your town sanitation business, and your buildings under the Sanitary Officer and the Medical Officer of Health; if he passes it he either passes it truthfully or not. 3415. Not only sanitation, have also ventilation P—Yes. but you ET CO | Continued. 3416. You might have, for instance, a small bedroom which would be quite suit- able as to cubic space and so on for one individual, but if you put three or four or perhaps more nurses into that bed- room to sleep, then it might be very bad?—.But you have far worse conditions now in the private homes of the people —five and six in one room, and things of that sort. 3417. You do not suggest that that is staff should be accommodated in that way P-—I say where the big evil is, cleanse the Augean stable first, and then go for the lesser things by degrees, if you lke. I say that the doctor’s home is a place where there is no necessity for any in- spection whatsoever; that he himself is, shall we say, a Vicar of Bray; in other words, there is only the General Medical Council over him, and if he does not con- duct himself properly with the patients he will lose his patients. He has every- thing on his side to study his patients and the nurses. In my own case, the first case I ever took in was under request by a mother, and I got it by wireless coming over from France, a patient who had appendicitis. The French people at Le Touquet, the golf place, do not seem to operate as quickly as we do here. This girl was operated on and on the twelfth day they did not put a tube in, and she came over on this life in England. I was wirelessed, would I take her into my own house, because I knew the family well. That girl was operated on by Mr. Sampson Handley; the nurse she brought over from France was paid £1 a day, and she had a nignt nurse from Mr. Sampson MHandlevy’s home, and her life was saved—a very — severe case. That is the first case I 3418. You generally only have one case?—No; I have taken in two at a time. For instance, I take tonsils and adenoids in, or a little operation, or an examination. 3 3419. In the sort of home that you have I agree inspection is not very im- portant, and probably would be little more than nominal, but I do not know. whether you are aware of it, but we have had other cases where doctors have been actually running a home on a fairly big scale, purely apparently for private gain, as a means of livelihood, where there were very serious irregularities, When we have such evidence as that put before