Annual report of the Leicester Royal Infirmary, Children's Hospital and Leicester and Leicestershire Maternity Hospital : 1943.

  • Royal Infirmary (Leicester, England)
Date:
1943
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Leicester Royal Infirmary, Children's Hospital and Leicester and Leicestershire Maternity Hospital : 1943. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    scheme as early as possible. Before this can be done it will be necessary to extend the accommodation. The Governors believe that this scheme will prove to be one of the greatest administrative advantages introduced for many years. National Health Service The White Paper has been published and debated in Parlia¬ ment. It has been said that it is only the framework on which the new Health Plan is to be built. The Prime Minister when speaking recently at the College of Physicians expressed his belief in tradition. The White Paper, however, does not appear to lay any emphasis on the traditions of the Voluntary Hospitals which have served the public for 800 years. Voluntary Hospitals have been the pioneers of Medical and 4 Surgical science as we know it to-day. There are more than 1,000 Voluntary Hospitals in the country with capital assets of £300,000,000. They are treating 1J million In-patients annually and 6| million as Out-patients. They have a mighty asset in the goodwill of the community which they have served faithfully and well. The absence of any provision for a statutory joint hospital advisory board precludes the voluntary hospitals from any voice in the planning, maintaining and improving the hospital service in any given area. Negotiations prior to the issue of the White Paper on the National Health Service encouraged the view that the Voluntary Hospitals would be invited into the new scheme as partners. It certainly lays down that the Voluntary Hospitals will be paid for work done but at a rate less than the actual cost. If all are to be provided with Hospital benefit by a payment under a National Health Insurance Scheme, will the public provide Voluntary Contributions to ensure the continuance of the Voluntary Hospitals ? The British Hospitals Association Executive of which the Chairman of the Board is a member, has expressed to- the Minister of Health its disappointment that a more active part in the Hospital Policy has not been allotted to the Hospitals that are at the moment doing the major part of the Medical and Surgical work of the country.