Report of Sub-Committee on Out-Patients.

  • Westminster Hospital. Sub-Committee on Out-Patients.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of Sub-Committee on Out-Patients. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    As to the Dispensaries, there are several of these giving gratuitous advice, and two, comparatively lately, have been re-organised on the Provident principle. The Royal Pimlico in Buckingham Palace Road, and the St. Paul and Barnabas in Ebury Street. Both seem to be in excellent working order, flourishing, and apparently giving satisfaction to the subscribing members. In some respects the relief they afford is better than any which the Hospitals can afford, because attendance is given at home when the oases require it. The Western Dispensary, which is nearest to the Hospital, has hitherto been a free Dispensary, giving advice gratis; but it is reported to be in contemplation to re-organise it on the Provident principle, as better adapted to meet the wants of the surrounding popu-r lation, with a due regard to their means and their true interests. 4. The best means of applying, if possible, in concert with such other Institutions (Hospitals and Dispensaries), an effective remedy for ascertained abuses in the Out-Patient Department. The best means of applying a remedy, and the changes required at this Hospital to give effect to a better system, have engaged the most serious attention of your Sub-Committee. The first step to be taken in this direction, and necessarily preliminary to any effective system of limitation in the number of applicants as Out-Patients, would appear to be a clear classifi¬ cation of eligible cases; and next, the appointment of a well- qualified registering officer, to exercise both judgment and dis¬ cretion in discriminating between those who are eligible and those who are not, reducing itself very much to those able to pay and those who, without being in receipt of parish relief, cannot pay for such medical advice as their cases require. The St. George’s Hospital Committee find the services of their Assistant Secretary, in registering all applicants, and putting a few questions, and of his superior the Secretary in cases of doubt, with a discretionary power in the latter to claim the assistance of the Charity Organization Society, when it is thought necessary to institute some further inquiry, is sufficient. And it appears to answer the end in view, so far as any persistent or flagrant abuse of Charity is concerned. When once fully in operation, it seems to be very nearly a self-acting process, and to do the work of elimination with¬ out contention. In other words, when it is once known that scrutiny is insisted upon, those applicants who can be shown to be in a condition to pay for advice, cease, as a rule, to make any effort to be admitted. The only difficulty that has been suggested lies in the application of a rule to exclude all who are able to pay for advice, either at the rate of charge usual among the Medical Practitioners of the district, or the Provident Dispensaries. The mere receipt of a certain amount of wages or income is not always sufficient to determine the fact. Some even in the position of Cleiks, the superior and better paid class of Servants, or the small Shop-