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HEALTH SERVICES PROVIDED BY OTHER AUTHORITIES
North-West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board
Through the Uxbridge Group Management Committee this authority maintains two
hospitals in Southall, the Southall-Norwood Hospital (28 beds) for treatment of general
medical and surgical cases and casualties, and Mount Pleasant Hospital (59 beds) for the
treatment of geriatric cases.
St. Bernard's Hospital is managed by its own Committee and is for the reception of
cases of mental and nervous disorders; it has over 2,500 beds and takes patients from an
extensive area comprising parts of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Middlesex, including
the Borough of Southall. All modern forms of treatment are carried out, including, if
appropriate, Industrial Therapy. Patients are now admitted informally (under the Mental
Health Act, 1959) and Informal and Compulsory became the sole categories of admissions
after 1st November, 1960.
Other hospitals outside the Borough which are used to a considerable extent by patients
from Southall are Hillingdon Hospital, West Middlesex Hospital and King Edward Memorial
Hospital, Ealing. Southall cases of infectious disease mainly enter St. John's Hospital,
Uxbridge, which also has facilities for the treatment of geriatric cases. The greatest number
attend Hillingdon, which has all the facilities of an acute general hospital, a geriatric section
and a maternity wing, either as outpatients, or as inpatients; in 1964, 3,258 Southall
residents had inpatient treatment in Hillingdon compared with 3,351 in 1963 and 2,998 in
1962. This figure includes 1,639 maternity mothers and babies discharged, compared with
1,624 in 1963, and 1,362 in 1962.
During 1964, Mount Pleasant Hospital, a 59-bedded geriatric hospital, providing
accommodation for 39 female and 20 male elderly patients, admitted 30 patients from the
Southall area. The upgrading of the main hospital kitchen and Windle Ward was completed
during the summer of 1964, and re-decoration of Elizabeth West Ward is planned for
1965. The trolley shop service continues to be operated by the W.V.S. and the library
service by the British Red Cross Society.
Southall-Norwood Hospital, an acute general hospital of 28 beds, admitted a total of
583 Southall residents as inpatients during 1964, and the great majority of the 6,588
attendances at the accident and emergency department were also made by Southall people.
An additional gynaecological clinic session each month was commenced during 1964.
The nurses' quarters in the main hospital were re-decorated during the year. The library
service for this hospital continued to be given by the Southall Public Library.
The Southall Hospitals Comforts Committee, which came into operation after the
Uxbridge Group Hospital Management Committee took over the functions from the voluntary
House Committee of the Southall-Norwood Hospital and the administration from the
Public Health Department of the Mount Pleasant Hospital, through all these years has
been working as a voluntary Committee to keep the two Southall hospitals modern and
up-to-date and to provide through a collection of funds for luxury equipment and staff
functions not able to be supplied from the official sources.
This Committee initiated the provision of television for patients and staff, which was
later taken over by the Group Management Committee, and there is no doubt that these
two hospitals are attractive to patients and comfortable for staff in a manner that one sees
infrequently in London hospitals.
It is faintly possible that the tendency to centralise and enlarge in the latest type of
glass palaces may be economical in the long run, but unfriendly for patients because of the
cold atmosphere. It usually causes difficulty of access for patients because the catchment
area required for such places is enormous and public transport services very limited, and
also of course, initially the cost is colossal. Meantime, the small local hospitals are giving
splendid service to the public of this Borough.
The Uxbridge Chest Clinic is the regional centre to which residents of the Borough
of Southall may be referred regarding chest disorders. It is also the regional centre for the
diagnosis, treatment, after-care and prevention of tuberculosis (both pulmonary and nonpulmonary).
Persons may be referred there by their own doctors, from Clinics, etc. Special
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