Annual report of the Board of Control : 12th, 1925.

Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Annual report of the Board of Control : 12th, 1925. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    163/482 (page 153)
    APPENDIX C.—continued. --— Mental Hospital. Notice to Patients. The Hospital aims to provide all that is requisite for the comfort, care and treatment of the patients. They are invited, however, to make their wants and wishes known to the Sister or Charge Nurse of the Ward; or, if they prefer direct to the Superintendent (verbally or in writing) or through one of the Medical or other Officers. Official Visitors. The Hospital is regularly inspected by members of the Visiting Committee who see all the patients and with whom the power of discharge rests. It is also visited from time to time by Commissioners of the Board of Control who see all the patients, and by Guardians for the purpose of seeing the patients of their respective Unions. “ Service ” patients are also visited by Officials from the Ministry of Pensions, and certain patients by the Lord Chancellor’s Visitors. Private patients have the right to request a personal and private interview with a visiting Commissioner or a member of the Committee at any of these visits; in practice, this privilege is nob limited to private patients. Visits from Relatives and Friends. Except in the case of severe bodily illness or of other special circum¬ stances, it is undesirable that patients should be visited until they have been in the Hospital a month. Subsequently, visits to patients by their relatives and friends at reasonably frequent intervals are encouraged. The relative or friend named in the patient’s admission papers is supplied with a copy of the Visiting Regulations and is always notified in the case of a patient being taken seriously ill. A copy of these Regulations may also be sent, at the patient’s request, to any other person who may in the opinion of the Superintendent properly be expected to visit. Letters. Patients are encouraged to correspond with their relatives and friends; for this purpose paper, envelopes and other requisites can be obtained from the nursing staff. Subject to compliance with the instructions set out in the Visiting Regulations, no restrictions are placed on the receipt by patients of letters; but, it is deemed advisable that the contents of parcels usually should be examined before handing them to their recipients. Letters written by patients should be placed in the locked boxes provided for this purpose. They are collected, at least once each day, by a responsible Official. Every patient has the right to have any letter sent unopened to the Visiting Committee of the Hospital or any member of the Committee, to the Board of Control (66, Victoria Street, London, S.W. 1) or to one of the Commissioners of the Board, or to the Lord Chancellor, or to the Minister of Health; or to the person who signed the reception order; and also, in the case of private patients, to the person on whose petition such order was made, or to any Chancery Visitor or the Judge (under 53 Viet. cap. 5) who deals with property. Apart from these official letters, it is desirable, in the interests of the writer and of the intended recipient, that other letters before being posted should be examined by a Medical Officer or other responsible Official; and, when there is a doubt as to the propriety of their despatch, the decision is a matter for the discretion of the Superintendent. Effort is