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It is thus seen that the accommodation far exceeds the theoretical requirement of one bed
for each thousand of the population. On that scale London would require not more than 4,700
beds; it has, or soon will have, more than 10,000.
METROPOLITAN AMBULANCE SERVICE.
This question, to which much consideration has been given in these reports* since 1903,
entered upon a new phase in 1905, the London County Council having decided to apply to Parliament
for power to establish a street accident service. The subject was brought up in a report of
the General Purposes Committee, dated 3rd July, embodying a scheme which contemplated the establishment
of a principal ambulance station and seven district stations, in positions within approximately
a two-mile radius of Charing Cross—two miles apart; and each to serve an area with a
radius of about a mile. A service would thus have been provided for that part of the county within
a radius of three miles of Charing Cross, comprising the districts where accidents most frequently
occur, and to which the Committee thought it desirable to confine the service until experience should
have been gained as to the working of it. The stations were to be furnished with motor ambulances
worked by electricity; and connected with each station there was to be a number of call-posts,
similar to those in use in the fire-brigade service, and situated about a mile from each other within
the three-mile circle. The estimates of the cost of the scheme showed a capital outlay of £13,000,
and an annual charge of £9,600 for maintenance. The Committee stated that the Metropolitan
Police returns for 1903 give as the total number of street accidents 10,356 (of which 154 were
fatal) within the Metropolitan Police area, which is much greater than the area of the County of
London, but does not include the City. They assumed, however, that no more than 7,500 accidents
of which the police have knowledge, occur in the course of the year within a three mile radius of
* The question was dealt with in the second, third, sixth, seventh and thirteenth four-weekly reports, 1905.