§ THE EARL OF DARTMOUTHMy Lords, I rise to ask the Under-Secretary of State for War what steps it is proposed to take in order to enable the County Associations Territorial Force to carry out the difficult task of raising voluntary aid detachments now that the central executive committee of the St. John's Ambulance Association have expressed their "inability to be further formally connected" with the voluntary aid scheme published by the War Office in August, 1909.
It may possibly be within the knowledge of some of your Lordships that the St. John's Association have withdrawn participation in the voluntary aid scheme which was established by the War Office last year. This intimation was made to those interested by letter emanating from the central offices of the St. John's Ambulance Association on June 11 last, and it has put County Associations in a very difficult position. I do not propose to-night to go into the details, and I hope I shall say nothing that will add to the difficulties of the situation. Obviously some friction must have occurred somewhere, and I should regret very much if anything I said added to the friction which has arisen. In all probability later on there will be a full debate on the circumstances that have taken place. I think it will be sufficient on the present occasion to remind your Lordships of the skeleton of the scheme that was instituted by the War Office, the object, of course, being to make provision for what we must all admit is the necessary corollary of any home defence force—namely, for the care and conveyance of the sick and wounded in case of invasion.
The scheme itself consists in the raising of voluntary aid detachments. I do not propose now to go into the duties, which are various, and the responsibilities, which are great; but I think it well to remind your Lordships that in this scheme in the first 919 instance the County Associations, who are charged with the responsibility of the organisation of voluntary aid in their various counties, were empowered to delegate to the British Red Cross Society their duties with regard to the raising, and that in order to assist them the St. John's Ambulance Association was also introduced in order to give the necessary preliminary instruction in the direction of first-aid and home nursing. It will be noticed that while the aid is voluntary the responsibility, as far as the County Associations go, is compulsory, and that this proposal brings into the scheme two existing organisations with fundamental rules of their own, to which, of course, they would naturally adhere. For instance, the St. John's Ambulance Association is a very far-reaching one and I understand that, while the normal number of classes held during one year is about 3,000, during the last six months, since the introduction of this scheme, 4,600 classes have been held. This shows how wide and far-reaching an organisation the St. John's Ambulance Association is, and where you bring in an existing body of this kind it is obvious that on the part of those on whom the responsibility is placed of providing the necessary arrangements for the scheme great care must be necessary to avoid any possible friction.
By the introduction of these two existing organisations an endeavour has been made, so to speak, to put new wine into old bottles, and we know on very high authority that that endeavour ends in disaster, as it has in this case, one of the bottles, as far as the scheme is concerned, having apparently burst. What makes it more serious to County Associations is that the St. John's Ambulance Association is the foundation on which we have been instructed to build. With these few remarks I should like to repeat that I do not wish in any way to add to the necessary difficulties of the situation. My sole object in raising the question, now that our foundation has gone, is to elicit information from the War Office as to what means they propose to enable us to fulfil the duties they have imposed upon us.
LORD LUCASMy Lords, nobody regrets more sincerely than I do—in fact, than we all do at the War Office—that the St. John's Ambulance Association have seen fit to take the step that they have taken in severing their formal connection with the voluntary aid scheme. We understand from them, however, that the fact that they have, in their 920 own words, expressed their inability to be further formally connected with the voluntary aid scheme, does not mean that they intend to cease the valuable work they have been doing in holding classes for the granting of first-aid certificates. As the noble Earl, Lord Dartmouth, has stated, the holding of these certificates is a necessary preliminary to the formation of a voluntary aid detachment. Nobody has hitherto been allowed to join until he had obtained one of these certificates. Therefore I hope that we shall still have the advantage that will be conferred by the holding of these innumerable classes by the St. John's Ambulance Association, and that they will continue to pass people through them who will be available for voluntary aid detachments.
I should also like to say that we are issuing to County Associations in the course of the next few days an intimation that we shall henceforward be prepared to accept other first-aid certificates than those of the St. John's Association, which are the only ones we have hitherto accepted, provided that the course of instruction has been given by a duly qualified medical practitioner and an examination carried out also by a duly qualified medical practitioner, and also that the form of such certificate has been submitted to and approved by the War Office. That is a further development of the scheme which will be communicated to County Associations in the course of the next few days. I may mention that we are forming an advisory council, upon which we hope to have representatives of all the bodies concerned in this movement. That advisory council will be called together as quickly as possible, and will deal with some of the difficulties that exist in this particular case. We realise that it is essential to the progress of this scheme that the granting of preliminary certificates should be facilitated as much as possible, and while we have not got the faintest intention of lowering the standard in any way, of making the qualification standard any lower than it is at the present moment, we are going to do everything we possibly can to enable people who wish to join voluntary aid detachments to obtain satisfactory certificates as expeditiously and as easily as possible.
§ THE EARL OF DARTMOUTHThe noble Lord, in his reference to the acceptance of first-aid certificates other than those of the St. John's Ambulance Association, spoke of the provision that the instruction should be by a duly qualified 921 medical practitioner and the examination by a duly qualified medical practitioner. I presume it will be clearly understood that the instructor and the examiner shall be different persons.
LORD LUCASI do not like to lay down anything absolutely definite on that point now, because this is just one of the points we shall lay before the advisory council. But our view at the moment very strongly is that the present standard is one which we ought to maintain.