A scheme for the provision of nursing homes at moderate prices for the middle classes, and for the relief of the financial difficulties of provincial hospitals : a paper read before the Bristol and Bath Branch of the British Medical Association / by J.R. Benson.

  • Benson, John Robinson, 1869?-1952.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A scheme for the provision of nursing homes at moderate prices for the middle classes, and for the relief of the financial difficulties of provincial hospitals : a paper read before the Bristol and Bath Branch of the British Medical Association / by J.R. Benson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    To ensure the widest possible sphere of usefulness it is very important that we should keep the average cost per bed in such a Home as low a3 possible. In fact, the lower our average cost per bed the greater the range of patients we will be able to cater for, and the lower our minimum charges will be, as will be shown in my following remarks. As it would defeat our aims to receive as patients those who can afford to go to the existing Homes, with wdiich it would be undesirable for many reasons to enter into com- petition, our maximum charge must not be more than £2. 10s. per week per patient. If, then, the average cost per patient to the Home wrere £2. 2s. per week, as we shall presently see would be the case if we simply took a house and opened it as a Home, it would only leave a profit of 10s. for each that paid full fees to go towards the support of those patients who could only pay part of their cost. Therefore only a very few low-priced beds could be main- tained, and these only when a good many full-paying beds were occupied. On the other hand, if we could keep a patient at the average cost of £1 per week, the profit wrould be £\. 10s. per week ; in other w7ords, each patient paying the maximum fee would help to support three others who could each only afford 10s. per week. Consequently, if we only had one patient paying maximum fees we should still be able to continue our mission without loss to the institution. If we were to attempt to alter an ordinary house and open a Home in the ordinary way, it would be of but little more use than those already existing, because by the time rent, rates, taxes, interest on capital, expenditure, the nurses’ and servants’ wages and food bills, the lighting, heating, and all such expenses, which we can group under the term “ Administration Expenses,” had been paid, the average cost per bed could not be brought much below £2. 2.s*. per week, which, as we have seen, is too near our maximum charges to allow tin.1 necessary elasticity for our graduated scale of fees, and therefore does not leave scope