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The General Purposes Committee (on 16th March) requested
the Ambulance Committee to submit to them a report upon the whole
question.
The report of the Ambulance Committee, dated 2nd November,
records the steps taken by them to ascertain the views of the 60
Metropolitan Public Health and Poor Law Authorities, and shows
that 33 of these bodies will support an application by the Asylums
Board to the Local Government Board for the necessary legal
authority for the Asylums Board to use their ambulance carriages
for the conveyance of non-infectious cases: only 16 of these bodies
are averse to the proposal. The Committee, moreover, wrote to the
secretaries of 33 London hospitals enquiring whether they considered
it would be of advantage to the public if the Asylums Board were
empowered to place ambulance carriages at the service of the public
at moderate charges? With one exception the replies were emphatically
in favour of the proposal.
The Committee state that it is "generally recognised that a
public ambulance service for the conveyance of non-infectious cases
is very much wanted in London," and that in their opinion "the
Asylums Board is in the best position of any public body to provide
the service required." "Economy and efficiency," they say. "must
result from all the ambulance arrangements of London being under
the control of one central authority of great experience in such
matters," —a view which surely will be generally accepted—and "the
Board can carry out the work more economically than any other body
because there is so much of its existing service which can be utilised
for the purposes in view-such as its extensive telephone system,
and its clerical staff"; it being possible, moreover, to reserve a certain
number of ambulance carriages exclusively for non-infectious work."
Already, during the current year, the Mead Station vehicles have
conveyed over 1,000 non-infectious cases —infants and children —
to the Managers' Asylums, and the work is still going on.
It has been ascertained that, on an average of five years, the daily
admissions to the asylums under the charge of the County Council,
and those of the Managers, is twelve; and as the vehicles of the
Mead Station are sufficient to effect at least 50 separate removals a
day, the Committee believes that there would be "an ample margin
for surgical eases and medical cases,* sufficient to meet all probable
demands."
"On the grounds of economy and efficiency," therefore, the
Committee think that "it is advisable for the Asylums Board to
undertake the proposed work," and that "it is practicable for them to
do so immediately the necessary legal authority can be obtained."
* The reference to the Committee did not include street accident cases