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.

    45/284 (page 19)
    30 March, 1926.] —Quite so. We go even so far as to suggest that they might inspect to see that there is a proper proportion oi fully trained nurses. Of course, we appreciate that one of the complaints is that a lot of these homes are run with what you may call cheap girls, who are not nurses at all in any sense of the word. We are quite with anybody that that sort of thing ought to be put an end to, and that while they might have two or three probationers in proportion, the staff must be an efficient staff of fully trained nurses; it should be inspected from that point of view. Miss Wilkinson. 178. Would not only a nurse be really able to judge of the quality of nursing? If you have an unqualified person at the head you might have a qualified nurse under her who was dependent upon that head for her job, and she is naturally not going to make complaints, and the sick-person does not know the sanitary conditions below stairs, perhaps insanitary kitchens and so on, and in that case no complaint would be made, but a most in- Sanitary condition of affairs and a dangerous state of affairs might exist ?— We quite agree that the sanitary inspec- tion should be made; it says so at the top of page 8. ‘‘ The matter would not be of such importance if inspection was strictly lmited to obtaining evidence that the person responsible for the home was a registered medical practitioner or a certified nurse; or that the matron in charge was a certified nurse; that the premises were suitable for the nursing of the patients, that the accommodation for the nursing staff and domestic stait was satisfactory; that a proper propor- tion of fully trained nurses was em- ployed and that the sanitary arrange- ments were adequate.”’ 179. Leaving that for the moment, surely the nursing of the patient is one of the most important things; why should you exclude that specifically from the scope of the visiting inspector ?—Might I put it the other way round? How could a woman walking into a private room where the patient is ill in bed be able to determine that the nursing given to that private patient is adequate? She would have to live on the premises, you might say, to be a sort of inspector; she could not do it in a visit of an hour. 180. Surely a really qualified nurse who knew her job could find out by cross- [ Continued. examining the nurses who might not themselves be registered, but might be parlourmaids or just untrained people. Take the case of an operation; they may have an operation case on their hands and really not understand the dressing and so on. A really qualified nurse who knew what to ask would not just go into a room and just casually glance round, but she would be able to ask questions which would give some idea as to how the nursing was being conducted, do vou not think?P—Can you appreciate the position what would happen in a nursing home with a registered nurse of the highest status, doctors of the highest status, a patient of the highest rank living in Mayfair; a qualified inspecting nurse walks in and holds an examination of the place even down to the kitchen maid and any woman she may happen to buttonhole on the staircase in order to determine whether Lady So-and-so is being adequately nursed. There would be chaos in that home in half-an-hour, friction all round, and a patient with a high temperature needing a sedative. 181. That surely is rather an extreme case P—No, not at all. Miss Wilkinson.| If you are going to have a highly adequate nursing home with highly trained practitioners and s¢ on, you would not have the same type of inspection that you would have where there is reason to know that the people at the head of it are not qualified people, and it is not under a qualified practi- tioner. Do you not think under those circumstances that the public interest demands that somebody should be there ? Chairman,| That is actually down in the précis, you will see, Miss Wilkinson. Miss Wilkinson.] Yes, I see that. Chairman. 182. This is the definite opinion, apparently, of the British Medical Asso- ciation. It is your definite view that the inspection should be very considerably limited, and it should not extend to any- thing connected with nursing, to any- thing connected with the medical side, and I do not know how far you would say that it ought to look into the quali- fications of the existing people who are running homes?P—We say that a proper proportion of fully trained nurses should be there. 183. And they are to find that out?— Naturally. They would have a list given them and by looking at the nurses’ regis-