Annual report of the Board of Control : 32nd, 1945.

Date:
1945
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Annual report of the Board of Control : 32nd, 1945. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE THIRTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF CONTROL. (FOR THE YEAR 1945.) INTRODUCTORY Our Report for the year 1945 is the first to be published since the printing and publication of our Annual Report was discontinued on the outbreak of war in 1939. We have, therefore, included in our present Report material falling outside the year immediately under review. Retrospect 1939-1945 Section I of this Report contains a survey of the Board’s work and the major aspects of the administration of the Mental Health Service during the war 1939-1945. In this section we have summarised and tabulated statistics not hitherto published and have reviewed, among other things, the contribution of the Mental Health Service to the war effort, the incidence of mental illness and the condition of mental patients during the war. The evacuation of 25,000 mental hospital and mental deficiency beds put at the disposal of the Services and the Emergency Medical Service space for some 42,000 beds for war casualties. But in the hospitals to which the evacuated mental patients were moved this involved overcrowding amounting at one time to 16 per cent. This, with blackout restrictions detrimental to night ventilation, and shortage of staff, created conditions in which the health of patients was bound to be adversely affected. It is, however, significant that the increase of the death-rate was substantially lower than the increase during the war (1914-1918) ; and that in 1945 the death-rate at 68*4 per 1,000 was slightly lower than the average of the years 1935-1939. Our examination of all the factors leads us to suggest that the better health record during the recent war was largely the result of an improved and better balanced diet. We have often pointed out that admissions to public mental hospitals are not necessarily an indication of the incidence of mental illness among the population. The admission rate is affected by many factors, including, for example, the amount of accommodation available, the facilities provided at particular hospitals and the extent to which out-patient work is developed in the area. Nor is it possible to assess with any certainty the extent to which the stresses of war may have affected the mental health of the community. That period of stress was, however, also a period of full employment and a higher standard of living, which might be expected to reduce the incidence of the milder forms of mental illness. We can only record as facts that the admissions to mental hospitals in 1940, 1941 and 1942 were lower than the average of the pre-war quinquennium. By 1943 the admissions had risen above the pre-war average and continued to rise in 1944 and 1945.