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bley is the Kingsbury Maternity Hospital (fifty-six beds) associated with
the Charing Cross Group of Hospitals.
This accommodation has to serve a large population living in a very
large area, and is insufficient to meet the demands. Even with strict
control over early bookings, all beds are booked well before the times they
are to be used. This makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for the
hospital to accept late applicants even though their circumstances make it
most necessary that the confinement should take place in hospital.
Accommodation for the Aged.
There are thirty-eight beds for geriatric patients at the Edgware
General Hospital; fifty-two at Roxbourne Hospital; thirty-two at Oxhey
Grove Hospital; fourteen at Stanmore Cottage Hospital; twenty-three at
Orme Lodge; twenty-four at Glebe House and twenty-six at St. Elizabeth's
Hospital which is administered by the Barnet Group Hospital Management
Committee. Contractual arrangements exist for fifteen beds at
Springbok House which is provided by the National Corporation for the
Elderly, and four at the Avenue Nursing Home. There are now three
hospitals to which patients can be admitted direct from their homes these
being Edgware General Hospital. Roxbourne Hospital and St. Andrews.
To meet the needs of the area there are 267 beds scattered over a wide area
in eleven different establishments. Not only is the number of beds well
below what is needed to meet the demands of the district, but the fact that
they are divided amongst a number of institutions, some of them of small
size, makes them less serviceable and valuable than they would if they
were concentrated in a small number of hospitals.
Convalescent and Recuperative Homes.
Arrangements for the admission to convalescent homes of persons
who need nursing or medical treatment while they are at the homes are made
by the hospital almoners on behalf of the Regional Hospital Boards.
Persons who need only supervision and rest in homes which do not
provide nursing or medical treatment are admitted to homes by arrangements
made by the local health authority. These arrangements are
intended for those in whom a period of rest in a home would speed up their
recovery from some recent illness or perhaps make the recovery more
complete. An application is submitted by the patient's doctor to the
Area Medical Officer, being then passed to the County Medical Officer
who decides on the home the person should go to. Recommendations
made by the hospital staffs in respect of out-patients are not now accepted,
the procedure being for the patient to be referred by the hospital to his
own doctor. As contrasted with the arrangements for convalescence
made by the hospitals, for this service a charge is made, but not in the
case of pupils attending maintained schools.