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6
Mental
Treatment
Act, 1930.
of patients now certified under the Lunacy Acts who might be dealt with more
appropriately under the Mental Deficiency Acts, but the number will not be large.
Such additional accommodation as it has been found possible to provide at the London
County mental hospitals in recent years has resulted mainly from the addition
of admission villas at the older hospitals and from the provision of nurses' homes,
which has enabled ward accommodation adapted as staff dormitories to revert to use
as accommodation for patients. The extent to which additional accommodation can
be provided in these ways is limited. As previously stated (par. 8), a scheme for the
enlargement of the Ewell Colony is in active preparation. Each of the other mental
hospitals, none of which was designed originally to accommodate more than
approximately two thousand patients, already is accommodating more, and in some
cases considerably more than that number, and it is doubtful whether any further
substantial addition to present numbers is either desirable or administratively
workable. It remains to be seen how far the operation of the Mental Treatment Act,
which received the Royal assent in July, 1930, and makes entirely new provision for
the reception after 1st January, 1931, in mental hospitals of voluntary patients
and for the detention of patients for temporary treatment without certification, will
affect the demands made upon accommodation in the London County mental
hospitals.
Patient!-—
number
resident.

These figures include 38 male and 70 female patients (total 114) chargeable to
parishes and unions outside the County of London,
14. A comparison of table 1 with table 2 shows that on 1st January, 1930,
except at Banstead and Horton mental hospitals, the number of patients exceeded
the number for which the measured accommodation provided. At that time at the
two hospitals mentioned there was vacant certain accommodation for female patients
which temporarily had not been available and was in process of being filled. This
accommodation was absorbed within a short time. Taking the total figures for all
the hospitals at 1st January, 1930, there were 132 male patients and 13 female
patients in excess of the number provided for by measured space, giving a net excess
of 145. The improved position, as compared with 1st January, 1929, in respect of
female patients, was due to the addition during 1929 of 122 beds for women (see
par. 4).
Patients for
whom the
Council was
responsible.
15. The statutory returns made to the Board of Control by the London
boards of guardians, collated with other available information, show that on
1st January, 1930, the Council was responsible for finding accommodation for
21,034 insane persons, who were housed as follows:—