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1. That your Petitioners are one of the Councils constituted under the London Government
Act, 1899, and hold their present title by Royal Charter.
2. That your Petitioners are strongly impressed with the need of an ambulance service
for the removal to hospital, or elsewhere, of sufferers from street accidents, and of persons
seized with sudden illness in the streets or other public places in the Metropolis; and also
for the removal from homes, etc., to hospital, or elsewhere, of persons suffering from bodily
illness or injury; very many of such persons being now unavoidably removed in unsuitable
vehicles—as four-wheeled cabs—and often-times at the cost of great suffering, and serious
aggravation to their illness or injuries, as the case may be.
3. That for dealing with street accidents in the Administrative County of London,
averaging some ten thousand yearly, the London County Council are seeking Parliamentary
power to establish and maintain an ambulance service; the scheme contemplated by the
Council, however, being of a wholly inadequate character; to wit, the provision of two
ambulance stations, one near to St. Thomas's Hospital, and one in the vicinity of Charing
Cross.
4. That the only public ambulance service at present existing in London, is that provided,
for the removal to hospital of persona suffering from infectious disease, by the
Managers of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, hereinafter referred to as " the Managers."
5. That in November, 1903, the Managers informed the Local Government Board of their
willingness to undertake the removal to hospital, or elsewhere, of urgent non-infectious
cases—medical, surgical, and insane—without cost to the indigent, but for a small fee by
those able to pay; and requested the said Board to obtain for them Parliamentary power to
do so.
6. That in the year 1905 the Managers removed 1,439 non-infectious cases in their
ambulances, including the removal of 134 urgent medical and surgical cases to general
hospitals.
7. That the Managers possess eight ambulance stations in different parts of the Metropolis,
viz.:—The "Eastern" (at Homerton), the "North-Western" (at Hampstead), the
"Western" (at West Brompton), the "South-Western" (at Stockwell), the "South-Eastern"
(at Deptford), the "Brook" (at Woolwich), the "Mead" (at Wandsworth Bridge, Fulham),
and the " Tooting-Bec " (at Tooting).
8. That the Managers possess a land service comprising 120 ambulances (86 singlebedded
and 34 double-bedded), a male staff of 183 persons, a staff of trained female nurses,
and a stud of 127 horses.
9. That in the year 1905 the Managers removed 44,241 persons to or from the fourteen
hospitals for infectious diseases established by them, within or without London.
10. That the Managers are able to place a suitable vehicle, properly equipped and
manned, in almost any part of London within half-an-hour of receiving an application therefor,
either at their Central Offices, on the Victoria Embankment, or at the nearest of
their Ambulance Stations.
11. That the Managers' ability to deal with removals would be greatly increased were
mechanical traction employed.
12. That there is ground for believing that even with the present ambulance service, the
Managers would be able to deal with all sick cases, infectious and non-infectious, and street
accident cases, requiring to be removed to hospital or elsewhere.
13. That on grounds of efficiency and economy it is desirable that a Metropolitan
Ambulance Service should be placed under a single authority.
14. That your Petitioners humbly submit that the experience acquired by the Managers,
after 25 years' practice, during which their land service has removed to or from hospitals,
and elsewhere, 612,359 sick and recovered patients, without accident or injury to any of
them, marks them out as eminently qualified for the position of Ambulance Authority for
all purposes, and for the Metropolis as a whole.
Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray your [Right] Honourable House to appoint a
Committee to make inquiry as to the desirability of a Public Ambulance Service being provided
for London, and as to the Authority by which such service should be provided.
And your Petitioners will ever pray, &c.
On the occasion of the third reading, a motion was submitted to amend the preamble of the
Bill; to declare the expediency of empowering the County Council to establish and maintain an
ambulance service for dealing with cases of accident and illness in the streets, and to restore Part
IV., containing the Ambulance clauses. The motion was opposed by the Chairman of the Select
Committee (Viscount Camperdown) who stated that the Home Office was opposed to the scheme.
The Council, his lordship said, put forward a proposal, in 1905, to have one principal and seven
district stations, at a cost of £13,000 a year. That proposal however was dropped, and the proposal