[Report 1952] / Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council.

  • Cumberland (England). County Council.
Date:
1952
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1952] / Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    doubt that large sections of the community feel keen disappointment that the hopes of 1948 are not materia- lising in this respect. Perhaps this disappointment is chiefly felt in connection with the mental health service. 2. Shortage of Hospital Beds. For the reason that nothing like adequate money is available to the hospital boards for new building, certain very serious shortages of hospital beds exist. In certain respects, these difficulties have become enor- mously increased by the passing of the National Health Service Act. This particularly applies to beds for chronic sick, and principally among the aged, and to beds in Part III. accommodation of institutions pre- viously maintained, and to som.e extent still maintained, by local health authorities. It is twice as difficult now to get elderly patients accommodated institutionally, either for simple care and maintenance, or for atten- tion to some medical condition as it was prior to the passing of the Act. I continually get frantic appeals from medical practitioners for help in dealing with cases of this kind. These appeals are frequently accom- panied by comparisons between the past and the present in this respect, not to the advantage of the present. Perhaps the most important speciality in which new building and the provision of more and up-graded accommodation is involved, is the mental health service. That includes mental hospitals and mental deflciency institutions. This difficulty is of course well known, and there is no point in elaborating it. There is no doubt however that the intensifled ascertainment of mental defectives, arising out of recent legislation, has magnified the problem very greatly, and in this particu- lar county contacts which were available to us before the passing of the Act are now no longer available. Here again I am afraid that it will be many years before the need is met, if indeed it ever is. 8. Recruitment and Prospects. Undoubtedly one of the principal cflects of tlic coming into operation of the National Health Service Act has been its disturbing effect on young medical graduates in that they can no longer look forward witti