Report of the Ambulance Committee.

  • Great Britain. Departmental Committee on the Ambulance Service in the Metropilis.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report of the Ambulance Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    49/348 (page 37)
    When the application of the County Council came before Committees of both Houses of Parliament the only formal opposition proceeded from the City Corporation, not, however, by way of obiection to a rapid ambulance service, for they announced their Gomme, 1339, intention of establishinef one for themselves; and, in view of such contemplated establish- ment they claimed to be exempted from any charge in respect of the proposed service for the County of London. As was explained at the time, the powers sought by the 1357-1359, 1371. Council would have enabled them to subsidise the City service. Mention should perhaps be made of a Eeport, dated March 26th, 1906, prepared by the Home Office, which was laid before the Committees of both Houses. This Eeport Gommc, 1311- directed special attention to the existing services of the police and of the Asylums Board, 1^19, 1341. the need of co-ordination and the undesirability of duphcation, as well as to the necessity for providing for other than street cases. It added that the police possessed three horsed ambulances which were in constant use. These latter, though originally intended for cases of illness or accident requiring removal to hospital, do not appear ever to have Henry, 12o-131. been used for street accidents, and in April, 1906, were condemned as obsolete or unfit for use, the Commissioner then approaching the Asylums Board with a view to |y^Q|^| obtaining the use of their ambulances. It apears that the Commons' Committee passed the ambulance clauses unanimously, Gomme, 1338, and the Bill containing them went through all its stages in the House of Commons. 1^^43. The'^'House of I^ords' Committee, through their Chairman (Lord Camperdown), expressed themselves satisfied with the medical evidence as to the desirability of estab- lishing a good ambulance service, and declined further witnesses on that point. Having 1345-7. ' ' heard evidence on the financial aspect of the tentative scheme the Committee, after deliberation, announced that the ambulance clauses would be struck out. On July 16th, 1906, a debate took place on the Third Reading of the General Powers Bill of the Ijondon County Council, in the House of Lords, when a proposal was made to reinstate the ambulance clauses. General agreement was expressed as to the desirability Pad/. Debates, of an efficient ambulanco service for London, and the noble Chairman of the Committee V'- i'j**. pp- (Lord Camperdown) explained the reasons for striking out these clauses. He stated that l'-^'i3-1259. the Home Office were opposed to the scheme and were suggesting a consultation with the Council, but the chief objections appeared to be that the County Council could give no 134S-i), 1351-4 . exact estimate of the cost of the proposed stations, nor, indeed, any estimate of the ultimate cost of a complete scheme. Lord Beauchamp, representing the Home Office, stated that the Secretary of State was summoning a conference of the three bodies concerned—the London County Council, the Metropolitan Police, and the Home Office—to consider what should be done to improve the present condition of the ambulance service, and the amendment was accordingly withdrawn. The Case fok Reform. The case for reform of the present seriously defective provision as laid before the County Council eight years ago, and before Parliament two and a half years ago, will be Par. 107. found to be fully corroborated by the evidence received by this Committee. The question of utilising existing services and co-ordinating them has been care- fully gone into,and on the difficult problem of the most appropriate authority to undertake the work I regret to find myself in disagreement with my colleagues. In regard to the question of finance, upon which the proposals of the London County Council appear to have been wrecked in the House of Lords, it is clear that notwith- standing the exhaustive investigations conducted by this Committee it is no more possible even now to furnish an estimate of the ultimate cost of an adequate provision for London ^''^i'- l**. than it was for the witnesses who appeared on behalf of the County Council before the Lords' Committee in 1906 to do so. The first year's working of the City motor ambulance service (excluding £600 f(U' tlie ambulance and generator) was estimated to cost £1,540, and App. XI. actually cost £1,217 9s. 2d. The annual cost of maintenance, after the first year, of the County (Council's two trial stations was estimated to be just under £3,000. From these figures it may perhaps be inferred that an outside estimate for maintaining a self- contained electro-motor ambulance station serving a distri<'t of one or two mih's radius would be about £1,500 per annum. As the Finance Committee of the County Council justly pointed out, the Councils of the Metropolitan Boroughs (several of which urged the County Council to undertake this service), would probably be unwilling for long to contribute towards the cost of a