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.

    92/284 (page 66)
    20 April, 1926. ] [ Continued. take an interest in the nurses’ condi- tions, in their. sleeping quarters and in their food, and so on?—Yes; IJ think that committees always do, but I think that some country committees do not always quite follow the difference between a trained nurse and untrained nurse. 1016. Have you ever heard of the case of a matron getting a bonus for keeping .down expenses ?—No, I have not. 1017. And you have never heard of any complaints about nurses’ feeding in such cases?—I have heard complaints about nurses’ feeding, but I have never heard that reason given, that it was a bonus given to the matron. 1018. Your general suggestion is that in the cases where there is a financial consideration given to the doctor, 1t may possibly make him a little less particular about the standard of the nursing, and he might be tempted, as others engaging in financial transactions are, to engage cheap labour?—Yes; anyhow he would not be particular. J do know this as a fact, that if you watch cases coming into an area into a big general hospital it is the poor cases that’ will come; the better-off cases, you notice, go to the cottage hospital where the doctor is receiving some fee. 1019. You told us about the projected nursing home in your county which doc- tors were urging for, where the fee was to be three guineas, I think you said P— Three to four guineas. I do not think they have worked out yet what they can do it at, but they are going to keep it as low as possible. 1020. How are they managing to run the home on such a low fee?—I do not know. Py 1021. That is a mystery of theirs P— They are going to work it up; I think perhaps they will be able to do it. 1022. You have no objection, I under- stood, to the midwife or nurse having this single room or double room for a patient as long as it is open to inspection ; you have no objection to the system ?— No. I think it is probably of great ad- vantage to rural areas, but there should be discrimination as to what room is used, and, if I may say so, as to what midwife is allowed to do it. I know of a case now in an urban area where a midwife habitually lets a room; she ought not really to be allowed to have a case in her house. 1023. Why—because of the accommoda- tion ?—Bacause of the accommodation, and also we know that she is an unsuit- able character. She has gone downhill since she took her training. 1024. But if it were represented to the Board that there were sufficient grounds, she would be disqualified, would she not? —Yes, but until you can inspect the premises it is not very effective. It is much more easy if you are to go in and inspect constantly than not till a mid- wifery case comes off. Chairman. 1025. Did I rightly gather that, so far as your experience goes, in the rural area there are very few cases of confirmed invalids and old people who cannot get put up by their relations?—I think most of them go to the workhouse infirmaries. I think on the whole it is a fairly good standard of workhouse infirmary through- out the country. 1026. That seems to be a different state of things from the state of things in the place we were discussing just now, a place like Wimbledon ?—It is quite differ- ent. I do not think there is quite the same stigma on a workhouse infirmary in a rural area. 1027. Supposing Parliament did decide to register nursing homes, do you think that any exceptions ought to be made, exceptions. J think it would be much. easier for a registering authority to put them all on the same footing. Might I bring something to your notice upon registration P 1028. Yes.—I know in the original draft Bill there was a question of the County Councils and Borough Councils being the registering authority for the good work-— It would be very much better if it was also the Boroughs, not neces- sarily the County Borough, that had the Notification of Births Act. You under- stand the awful difficulty; one gets in. between two authorities. If I may explain the instance of my own county, Salis- bury is a non-County Borough, but yet it applied to have the Notification of Births Act, and the County Council quite rightly gave it up. That non-County Borough under this draft Bill, you see, would not have this inspection, and to work it properly it ought to have it. It has got its Medical Officer, it has got its health visitors, and it would work well if it was under the City Council. If