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.

    53/284 (page 27)
    30 March, 1926.] [ Continued. 280. Yes.—JWhy should size make a difference to the inspection? 281. I am asking you whether you suggest it?—(Dr. Bone.) No. Our suggestion is that homes run by medical men should be excluded from registration. That is our principal suggestion, which as I have said of course is wide and capable of modification, but that is the suggestion of the British Medical Associa- tion. 282. Then with regard to the second paragraph on page 2, on the question of notices, is not that sufficiently safe- guarded by Section 7 of the Bill: ‘‘ Every person carrying on a nursing home shall, if required in writing by the registration authority ’’.—(Dr. Fothergill.) That is about having this notice up. 283. Yes.—You mean you will give the discretion as to having a notice on your front door to the local authority? I should strongly object, and the profession would generally. (Dr. Bone.) I am sure it would. (Dr. Fothergill.) Just imagine it yourself. It seems so extraordinary. Here is a private Doctor’s ‘house, where his own family lives, and he happens to take in an elderly person who has got no relatives or has only a limited income, and is really better in a home. They would have their own home, if their sons and daughters were alive, or they had any, but they stay with a Doctor and go about en famille, and he has to have put outside his front door ‘“‘ Nursing Home,”’ or ‘* Registered Nursing Home,” with regulations inside. It seems so extra- ordinary that I cannot understand any- body wanting that. 284. You are not going to assume that in cases of that sort the local authority, the registration authority, is necessarily going to insist that everybody shall do that; it is left entirely to their dis- cretion?—We suggest that there should be no discretion at all. The whole question of the Doctor’s private house should be excluded, on two other Doctors’ certificates, if you wish, but we do suggest that the Doctor’s house should be ex- cluded from this Act. Sir Richard Luce. 2385. You say that the British Medical Association is not hostile to this question; is it very strongly in favour? One of the things that we have to decide is whether | there is any real need for this Bill at all, and how far it is needed. Have you any body of evidence which you could produce of the need for registration of these places. at allPp—(Dr. Bone.) No. We have no evidence of any general desire or need for registration. 286. Supposing it is found that there is need for registration, what particular class of homes is it necessary to guard againstP That is one of the points I wanted to get from you. In your view, as far as you have heard of any badly run homes and so on, what class of homes should such a Bill as this be directed to ? —I think probably the worst class of all is the class of homes run by unregistered, nurses. 287. For what purposes—for maternity work?—Yes. Probably the maternity group would be the worst group, but I think there is another group; there is the group where nurses take infirm people into: their homes, the broken down old people, and that sort of person. (Dr. Lord.) Of course, there is nothing to pre- vent anybody at the present day who likes to take it up as a commercial concern running a nursing home. I know of one case where there originally was some medical supervision, and I think it changed hands; somebody bought it who, as far as I know, has never had any nurs- ing training whatever, and I do not know that there is a trained nurse in the place. A doctor is called in if it is necessary at any time. 288. There are a certain number of homes of that kind that are in your mind?—Well, I know the one. (Dr. Bone.) Yes; I think we have knowledge of that. 289. ‘With regard to the question of in- spection, who is to do the inspection, if there is any inspection? The question has been raised as to who is a suitable in- spector. I take it that it is very import- ant that there should not be three or four inspectors for different purposes in the same institution, one looking at one thing and another looking at another?—Very important. 290. It is very essential that you should not have perhaps three inspections in the course of a year, or a quarter, or what- ever the time may be?—Yes. 291. There are certain things which would come under the question of sanita- tion, where the nurse would not be a suit- able person to do the work in the ordinary way; she would not have the training in general sanitation work ?—Quite so.