The Tripartite National Health Service
| Published date | 01 March 1955 |
| Author | J. A. Scott |
| Date | 01 March 1955 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1955.tb01633.x |
The
Tripartite
National
Health Service
By
DR.
J.
A.
SCOTT,
O.B.E.
The Medical Officer
of
Health
for
the
L.C.C.
surveys
rhree recent
studies important
to
the working
and
future
development
of
the
Natioilal
HeaIilz
Service.
HE
Nufield Faundation and the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust have
T in recent years sponsored,
or
co-operated in, much important research
work
on
various aspects of the problems with which illness faces both citizen
and community. The results of this work are now being published. This
review is concerned with three such studies1 made independently and dealing
with different aspects of the citizen in health and sickness, but nevertheless
coming to conclusions which have much in common. Two of these books
employ statistical methods of analysis and presentation. The third, on
general practice, is essentially qualitative.
“
Hospital and Community
”
Professor Ferguson and Dr. MacPhail in
Hospifal
and
Comnzinity
give
the results of an investigation suggested to them by the study they began in
1948
on
hospital-treated sickness.2 The earlier work was designed to elicit
what kind
of
cases hospitals serving
a
mixed area (Stirlingshire and Ayrshire)
of half a million people and 5.7 beds per 1,000 people (excluding
‘‘
mental
”
beds) treated and what happened to them.
It
showed that for every
J,OOO
people 73 received in-patient treatment and occupied beds for
2,275
patient
days and
110
received out-patient treatment each year. Social status, home
over-crowding and occupation all had some bearing on the illness.
37.4
per
ant.
as
cent. of the patients were regarded by the hospital as cured, 46.4 per cb
improved, 7.9 per cent. as unchanged and
0.3
per cent.
as
worse. 5.6 per cent.
died.
These two authors have now pursued the important question of what
happens
LO
patients after discharge and why. They studied a series
of
male
patients undergoing treatment in a general medical ward in each of two
Glasgow teaching hospitals and each
of
two provincial hospitals some miles
from the city. 705 unselected male patients were included
;
25
per cent. of
them suffered from cardio-vascular, 16 per cent. from digestive,
13
per cent.
from respiratory,
8
per cent. from endocrine diseases and the remainder from
a
wide range of disabilities. Within the five years preceding admission no
less than one in three of these men had had previous in-patient
or
out-patient
treatment for the same
or
a related condition.
The aim of Ferguson and MacPhail was to visit these men three months
and again two years after their discharge, assess their condition and evaluate
the factors influencing their progress. By the time of the first visit 9.4 per
IHospital and Co:omrnunity,
by Thomas Ferguson and
A.
N.
MacPhail (Oxford
University Press), 1954.
Pp.
ix
f
157,
9s.
6d.
A
Thousand Families
in
Newcastle
upon
Tyna,
by James Spence, W.
S.
Walton,
F.
J.
W.
Miller and
S.
D.
M.
Court (Oxford
University Press),
1954.
Pp.
217,
10s.
6d.
Good General Practice,
by Stephen Taylor
(Oxford University Press), 1954. Pp. xxiv
+
604,
12s.
6d.
-Hospital
and
Community.
I,
Hospital-treated Sickness among the people of
Stirlingshire.
11,
Hospital-treated Sickness amongst
the
people
of
Ayrshire. Nuffield
Provincial Hospitals Trust.
.
59
___
To continue reading
Request your trial