Royal Commission on Medical Education 1966-1968

  • Royal Commission on Medical Education
Date:
1944-1968
Reference:
SA/CME
  • Archives and manuscripts

About this work

Description

The papers in the Wellcome Library consist of an almost complete set of the written evidence to the Commission (copy "no. 3"), except for four pieces of evidence given in confidence and closed for 30 years after the date of the commission (these items are deposited in the Public Record Office).

Also included is a collection of relevant published papers and reports, including the "Todd Report" itself.

Publication/Creation

1944-1968

Physical description

8 boxes

Arrangement

The collection has been divided into the following three sections:

A. The Published Report 1968

B. Written Evidence 1965-1967

B.1-6 General

B.7-32 Abstracts of evidence

B.33-306 Circulated evidence

C. Associated Reports and Publications 1944-1967

An alphabetical arrangement has been adopted for the main series of files in Section B., according to the list of written evidence in the appendix to the published report, rather than the original chronological order by date of submission of the evidence. However, original file references are also indicated in the list. These include the following abbreviations: MISC = Various abstracts of evidence; WE = Written evidence; P = Publications?; and H = Hospitals?

Acquisition note

These records were given to the library at Wellcome Collection by the Archivist of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1986. Prior to this their provenance is unknown although it is likely that they belonged to a member of the Commission (probably Josephine Barnes) who left them with the College.

The published report was transferred to the Library's archive collections from the Library's Modern Medicine Collection.

Biographical note

The Commission was appointed in June 1965 to review medical education, both undergraduate and postgraduate, in Great Britain, in the light of national needs and resources, including technical assistance overseas; to advise the government on what principles should govern future development; to take into account the General Medical Council's review of recent changes in the undergraduate curriculum; and to consider what changes might be needed in the pattern, number, nature or location of the institutions providing medical education. The Commission published its report (the "Todd Report") in April 1968.

Related material

At Wellcome Collection: The papers of Professor Sir George Pickering (PP/GWP) deal mainly with medical education, including material relating to his book, The Challenge to Education (1967), and to a survey for the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust in the 1970s. In addition, the :Library holds papers of several of the individuals and organisations who gave written evidence to the Commission. The archive of the Physiological Society (SA/PHY), for example, contains a large section on the teaching of physiology, 1941-1993, including the Secretary's file on the Society's evidence to the Commission, Nov 1965-Apr 1967. In other repositories: The Commission arranged for sets of the written evidence submitted to it, together with summary records of the oral evidence, to be deposited in the National Archives, the Scottish Record Office, the National Library of Wales, the Library of the Royal Society of Medicine, and the offices of the Association for the Study of Medical Education. These five sets of papers were intended for public scrutiny. In addition, four pieces of written evidence, which had been submitted to the Commission in confidence, were placed in the National Archives and closed under the thirty year rule (see B.1).

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Identifiers

Accession number

  • 243