Report from the Select Committee on Nursing Homes (Registration).
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Nursing Homes (Registration)
- Date:
- 1926
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report from the Select Committee on Nursing Homes (Registration). Source: Wellcome Collection.
58/284 (page 32)
![30 March, 1926. ] [ Continued. why in regard to private doctors’ houses, where they have probably an infirm or a mental patient—it is for you to judge and talk it over—those doctors should not feel that they might go into the Bill, but that they should have a secret register sup- plied to the Ministry of Health. I think it could be easily got over in that way. Then there is just one other little thing. Chairman.|] You have not got an answer to your question yet. Mrs. Philipson. 343. Would you object to that?—Ii a doctor has one or two patients in his house ? 344. You mentioned the case of doctors having an infirm or a mental case living in their house ?—Yes. 345. Would that doctor, if he is an honourable man in the medical profession, mind the Ministry of Health having, say, a secret register for doctorsP?—It need not be secret at all, because we all know these doctors; we meet them every day as we goround. There is no secrecy about it. The point is this, if I might go so far, that if two doctors practising in the district were to give a certificate that in their opinion Dr. So-and-So is suitable, his name should be put on the list of those whose houses were never to be inspected at all. 346. You think two would be wise P— Well, three, if you lke. 347. You would not object to three ?—I do not mind the number. cannot get two or three reputable doctors in the district to say that. he can be trusted to take in single patients into his house who are not certified—of course if they are certified they come under the Board of Control and he is inspected— then the sooner he shuts down the better. 348. But you agree that two doctors to certify him would be better than one ?P— If you like to put two. I should not mind myself having two doctors in my area saying I am considered to be satisfactory and that I can be put on this register as not to be inspected. I would not mind at all, because I am perfectly sure I should get that. 349. Then with regard to inspection— I am not dragging sex equality into this— if there is a question, say, of two people the medical officer and somebody else, do you agree that a qualified nurse would be a better person to know whether the sani- tary arrangements or the cooking arrangements, or the utensils, and things like that were in order? Would you have any objection to thatP—(Dr. Bone.) Do you mean if there were to be two? 350. Yes.—No; I do not think we should have any objection to that at all. Sir Richard Luce. ‘351. On the question of the nurse, would you consider that even a matron was suitable to look after drains?—No. Mrs. Philipson.] That is not my point;. they, are not going to examine the drains. Sir Richard Lmuce.] Surely that would. be one of the things. Chairman.| Somebody has to see whether the place is sanitary. I suppose you are thinking that the matron might know something about cooking and the state of the kitchen. Mrs. Philipson.] After all, medical offi- cers of health and sanitary inspectors do that now. Chairman. 352. The medical officer of health would not know very much about cooking.—Iit is not a sex question at all. The doctor might be a woman. 353. You would not mind a woman Mrs. Philipson. 354. You do not absolutely say that there is not a case for registration ?—We. agree that there is a case. We have no evidence for any very great demand for it. We ourselves have no very great evidence of any demand for registration, but we agree that it may be necessary. (Dr. Fothergill.) I had occasion to get the view of Dr. Helen Boyle, who takes mental patients into her house and runs the Lady Chichester Hospital.. Her ex- perience of people being. on a register was that it created a false se— curity, and the only home that she knew in the area of Sussex—I put it very wide —that ought to be closed down was one which had got very good certificates that. it was a very satisfactory house. Mr. Hurst. 355. That rather discounts the two doctors’ certificates, does it not?—I do not know whether you have got the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32170051_0058.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
