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Social History of Medicine 1992 5(3):483-504; doi:10.1093/shm/5.3.483
© 1992 by Society for the Social History of Medicine
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Hospital Provision before the National Health Service: A Geographical Study of the 1945 Hospital Surveys1

MARTIN POWELL*

* School of Health and Human Sciences, University of Hertfordshire College Lane, Hatfield, Herts., AL109AB

SUMMARY This study presents the first empirical analysis of the 1945—6 Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust/Ministry of Health Hospital Surveys, and so gives an accurate picture of hospital provision at both national and sub-national levels just before the Second World War.

Attention is focused on the geographical variations between county boroughs and county councils, between regions and within regions. A correlation analysis shows that, to some extent, municipal provision compensated for low provision of voluntary hospital beds, but was unable to eradicate inequalities in voluntary hospital staffing. It is claimed that some previous assertions about the pre-National Health Service (NHS) distribution of hospitals are over-generalized, and do not sufficiently describe a complex system. In particular, the importance of the municipal system and the role of local politics has been neglected.

Keywords: geographical variation; hospital beds; Ministry of Health; Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust; pre-NHS hospital distribution; region; rural-urban contrasts; voluntary hospitals

1 I would like to thank Enid Fox of the University of Hertfordshire and two anonymous referees for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.


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