43. Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the possible risk to the security of integrity of the official documents upon which any person is committed to an asylum, he will take steps to ensure by regulation or otherwise that henceforth the originals of such documents shall, immediately upon their delivery to the manager of the asylum, be forwarded by him to the board of control for safe keeping; that the said board supply to him by return copies of these documents certified as true copies by two of the Commissioners, which copies shall serve, instead of the originals, as the authority for his detention of the patient, this regulation being rendered necessary by recent admitted instances of such documents having been tampered with; and will he say where, in the case of the extinction of a licence, such documents have been preserved up to the present?
§ Dr. ADDISONThe custody of the documents to which the hon. Member refers is governed by the provisions of the Lunacy Act, 1890. If the hon. Member will give me any information that is at his disposal as to any alleged tampering with documents, I will make immediate inquiries into the matter.