Voluntary hospital

Last updated October 17, 2023

Voluntary hospitals were created from the eighteenth century in England. In America, Ireland, and Australia, voluntary hospitals were established later. They can be distinguished from municipal hospitals, which were publicly owned, and private hospitals, which were run commercially. They were initially financed by public subscription. A voluntary hospital may also be a charitable hospital.

United Kingdom

By the middle of the 18th century there were five in London: St Barts, Guy's, St Thomas', Westminster and St George's. They provided free medical care to those who could not afford it. They were "amongst the chief sources of the advancement of medical science".^[1] They were the earliest teaching hospitals.

St Mary's Hospital, London was the last to be founded in England, in 1851.

The 1851 census recorded 7,619 patients in hospital in England and Wales. At that time those who could afford it were generally cared for in their own homes. In 1901 there were 39,184 hospital patients. Standards of care, and of nursing in particular had improved as formal training was established and staffing ratios improved. Nursing was almost entirely by women. Even in 1937 there were less than 100 male nurses employed in the voluntary hospitals. In 1900 there were about 11,000 nurses working in voluntary hospitals, some of whom were sent out to do domiciliary nursing. In 1937 there were more than 33,000, mostly actually in the hospitals. They worked longer hours for less pay than nurses in the municipal hospitals.

After the First World War the hospitals began to admit private paying patients and by 1921, 171 of the provincial hospitals had pay beds.^[2]

Public collections, Hospital Saturday Funds and flag days to support the hospitals continued in the UK until the 1930s.

The voluntary hospitals of Manchester in 1929 were the Royal Infirmary, St Mary's Hospital, the Royal Eye Hospital, the Royal Children's Hospital, Ancoats Hospital, the Northern Hospital for Women and Children, the Ear Hospital, St John's Ear Hospital, the Hospital for Consumption, the Hospital for Diseases of the Skin, the Christie Cancer Pavilion, the Radium Institute, the Jewish Hospital, the Babies' Hospital and the Dental Hospital; the Salford voluntary hospitals were Salford Royal Hospital and Greengate Hospital.^[3]

The King's Fund supported the voluntary hospitals in London.^[4]

Ten of the largest and most influential former voluntary hospitals in England established the Shelford Group in 2011 to protect their common interests.

Australia

A similar business model applied to all general hospitals in New South Wales up to the 1950s. Despite the charitable structure, much of the capital and half of the operating losses were being funded by state government by 1913.^[5]

Ireland

In Ireland the model is still in use.

Related Research Articles

A nursing home is a facility for the residential care of older people, senior citizens, or disabled people. Nursing homes may also be referred to as care homes, skilled nursing facilities (SNF) or long-term care facilities. Often, these terms have slightly different meanings to indicate whether the institutions are public or private, and whether they provide mostly assisted living, or nursing care and emergency medical care. Nursing homes are used by people who do not need to be in a hospital, but cannot be cared for at home. The nursing home facility nurses have the responsibilities of caring for the patients' medical needs and also the responsibility of being in charge of other employees, depending on their ranks. Most nursing homes have nursing aides and skilled nurses on hand 24 hours a day.

The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and specialist tertiary care services for patients from across London and elsewhere. The current hospital building has 845 beds and 34 wards. It opened in February 2012.

Nurse education consists of the theoretical and practical training provided to nurses with the purpose to prepare them for their duties as nursing care professionals. This education is provided to student nurses by experienced nurses and other medical professionals who have qualified or experienced for educational tasks, traditionally in a type of professional school known as a nursing school. Most countries offer nurse education courses that can be relevant to general nursing or to specialized areas including mental health nursing, pediatric nursing and post-operatory nursing. Courses leading to autonomous registration as a nurse typically last four years. Nurse education also provides post-qualification courses in specialist subjects within nursing.

Saint Mary's Hospital is a hospital in Manchester, England. It is part of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. Founded in 1790, St Mary's provides a range of inter-related services specifically for women and children. In 1986, St Mary's Sexual Assault Referral Centre was the first sexual assault referral centre (SARC) to open in the UK.

Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) is a large NHS teaching hospital in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, England. Founded by Charles White in 1752 as part of the voluntary hospital movement of the 18th century, it is now a major regional and national medical centre. It is the largest hospital within Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, and based on its Oxford Road Campus in South Manchester where it shares a site with the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Manchester Royal Eye Hospital and Saint Mary's Hospital as well as several other educational and research facilities. The Hospital is also a key site for medical educational within Manchester, serving as a main teaching hospital for School of Medical Sciences, University of Manchester.

District Nurses work manage care within the community and lead teams of community nurses and support workers. The role requires registered nurses to take a NMC approved specialist practitioner course. Duties generally include visiting house-bound patients and providing advice and care such as palliative care, wound management, catheter and continence care and medication support. Their work involves both follow-up care for recently discharged hospital inpatients and longer-term care for chronically ill patients who may be referred by many other services, as well as working collaboratively with general practitioners in preventing unnecessary or avoidable hospital admissions.

North Manchester General Hospital (NMGH) is a large NHS hospital in Crumpsall, North Manchester, England. It is operated by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. There is an accident and emergency unit, together with a maternity unit, high dependency unit and a mental health wing. A plan to rebuild the hospital was announced by Boris Johnson in the 2019 General Election campaign, and in November 2020 a £54 million funding bid for improvement works was made by the Trust, Manchester City Council, and Manchester Health and Care Commissioning.

The Ancoats Hospital and Ardwick and Ancoats Dispensary was a large inner-city hospital located in Ancoats, to the north of the city centre of Manchester, England. It was built in 1875, replacing the Ardwick and Ancoats Dispensary that had existed since 1828. The building is now Grade II listed.

The name National Health Service (NHS) is used to refer to the publicly funded health care services of England, Scotland and Wales, individually or collectively. Northern Ireland's services are known as 'Health and Social Care' to promote its dual integration of health and social services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cottage hospital</span> Type of small hospital

A cottage hospital is a mostly obsolete type of small hospital, most commonly found in the United Kingdom.

Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom provide emergency care to people with acute illness or injury and are predominantly provided free at the point of use by the four National Health Services (NHS) of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is only free to UK residents and a charge may be made to those not entitled to free NHS care.

The word "nurse" originally came from the Latin word "nutrire", meaning to suckle, referring to a wet-nurse; only in the late 16th century did it attain its modern meaning of a person who cares for the infirm.

Cheadle Royal Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Heald Green, Greater Manchester, England, built between 1848 and 1849. The main building is Grade II listed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hospital</span> Health care facility with specialized staff and equipment

A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emergency department to treat urgent health problems ranging from fire and accident victims to a sudden illness. A district hospital typically is the major health care facility in its region, with many beds for intensive care and additional beds for patients who need long-term care. Specialized hospitals include trauma centers, rehabilitation hospitals, children's hospitals, seniors' (geriatric) hospitals, and hospitals for dealing with specific medical needs such as psychiatric treatment and certain disease categories. Specialized hospitals can help reduce health care costs compared to general hospitals. Hospitals are classified as general, specialty, or government depending on the sources of income received.

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) is an NHS foundation trust based in London, United Kingdom. It comprises University College Hospital, University College Hospital at Westmoreland Street, the UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre, the Royal National ENT and Eastman Dental Hospitals, the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine and the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital.

In South Africa, private and public health systems exist in parallel. The public system serves the vast majority of the population. Authority and service delivery are divided between the national Department of Health, provincial health departments, and municipal health departments.

The history of nursing in the United Kingdom relates to the development of the profession since the 1850s. The history of nursing itself dates back to ancient history, when the sick were cared for in temples and places of worship. In the early Christian era, nursing in the United Kingdom was undertaken by certain women in the Christian Church, their services being extended to patients in their homes. These women had no real training by today's standards, but experience taught them valuable skills, especially in the use of herbs and folk drugs, and some gained fame as the physicians of their era. Remnants of the religious nature of nurses remains in Britain today, especially with the retention of the job title "Sister" for a senior female nurse.

The SEIU Healthcare 1199NW strike of 2014 was a 24-hour strike called by the Service Employees Union healthcare Local 1199NW. The strike was begun on Tuesday, November 18, 2014, at 7:00 A.M. There were 1,100 workers at two Pierce County hospital operated by CHI Franciscan Health in Tacoma participated in the strike event. The two hospitals are St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma and St. Clare Hospital in Lakewood. Nurse assistants, licensed practical nurses, unit secretaries, dietary workers, housekeepers, sterile processors, technical workers and other services of the two hospitals were walked off the job to participate in the strike. The strike did not include nurses and doctors. The union members were demanding CHI Franciscan Health to improve wages, improve on health care, improve on their charity care policy, and end unfair labor practices.

The Queen's Birthday Honours for 2020 are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as part of the Queen's Official Birthday celebrations during the month of June. The honours for New Zealand were announced on 1 June, and for Australia on 8 June.

The 2021 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrations at the start of January and those for 2021 were announced on 30 December 2020.

References

↑ Rivett, Geoffrey. "The Development of the London Hospital System, 1823 - 2015". NHS History. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
↑ Abel-Smith, Brian (1960). A History of the Nursing Profession. London: Heinemann. p. 128.
↑ The Book of Manchester and Salford written for the ninety-seventh annual meeting of the British Medical Association in July 1929. Manchester: George Falkner & Sons, 1929; pp. 7-8, 117-38 & 142-44
↑ Webster, Charles (1988). The Health Services Since the War. London: HMSO. p. 26. ISBN 0116309423.
↑ Cummins, C. (1976). "The administration of hospitals and charities". The History of Medical Administration in NSW. Online: Health Commission of NSW. pp. 137–140. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 February 2016. Retrieved 31 October 2015– via NSW Ministry of Health. It cannot be stressed too frequently that general hospitals developed as voluntary charities for the indigent poor, and survived essentially on the subscriber system, with irregular Government assistance, during the nineteenth century. .... If approved, and if finance was available, assistance for capital expenditure was provided by the Government, which also met the deficit between income and expenditure on a £1 for £1 basis.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Rivett, Geoffrey. "The Development of the London Hospital System, 1823 - 2015". NHS History. Retrieved 5 June 2017.

[2] Abel-Smith, Brian (1960). A History of the Nursing Profession. London: Heinemann. p. 128.

[3] The Book of Manchester and Salford written for the ninety-seventh annual meeting of the British Medical Association in July 1929. Manchester: George Falkner & Sons, 1929; pp. 7-8, 117-38 & 142-44

[4] Webster, Charles (1988). The Health Services Since the War. London: HMSO. p. 26. ISBN 0116309423.

[5] Cummins, C. (1976). "The administration of hospitals and charities". The History of Medical Administration in NSW. Online: Health Commission of NSW. pp. 137–140. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 February 2016. Retrieved 31 October 2015– via NSW Ministry of Health. It cannot be stressed too frequently that general hospitals developed as voluntary charities for the indigent poor, and survived essentially on the subscriber system, with irregular Government assistance, during the nineteenth century. .... If approved, and if finance was available, assistance for capital expenditure was provided by the Government, which also met the deficit between income and expenditure on a £1 for £1 basis.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]