THEIR DAY PAST

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 14, 17 January 1941, Page 11

THEIR DAY PAST

VOLUNTARY HOSPITALS

ADAPTATION TO CHANGES

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, January 15

The voluntary hospital system, which is practically confined to Britain and the Dominions, is brought a stage nearer the necessary adaptation to modern conditions by a report issued by the Nuffield Provincial Hospital Trust, which states that the purpose of the methods the trust is pursuing has the agreement and support of the Ministry of Health. The trust records the progress made in bringing together in regional councils of the trust representatives of the various interests concerned, the object being co-ordination within each regional area of the existing medical services, including the Ministry of Health, public health authorities, and voluntary hospitals, FOUNTAIN OF SKILL. "The Times" says: "The voluntary hospitals have always formed, and still continue to form, the backbone of the medical service in this country. They are the fountain from which come the knowledge and skill whereby other services have been sustained, They have borne the strain of recent years in such a manner as to prove beyond all doubt that they possess the confidence and affection of the nation and that their services are indispensable in the existing form. "But the fight they are carrying on will become too hard. They cannot possibly maintain it in the future. The preservation and adaptation of the voluntaiT effort within the framework of a new edifice may well prove to be not the least of the many benefactions Lord Nuffield has conferred upon his countrymen."