YARMOUTH NAVAL HOSPITAL BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 3 March 1931)

§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (LORD AMULREE)

My Lords, the main objects of this Bill are to regularise the legal position of the Royal Naval Hospital at Yarmouth and to indemnify those in control of the hospital, including the officers, in respect of past actions in connection with the hospital. The hospital has for many years been used by the Admiralty as a place for the reception of persons in the Navy who have become mentally afflicted, but doubts have been raised as to whether the Admiralty have now the power to use the place as a mental hospital in consequence of the repeal of certain legislation to which I will presently refer.

The Royal Naval Hospital, Great Yarmouth, has had a chequered history. It was completed in 1811 at a total cost of £120,000 and was built to receive 198 wounded in the Navy during the war with France, but no naval wounded ever arrived. After the close of the War in 1815 soldiers were admitted. It was next turned into a barracks but was rarely used as such. In 1844 it became a military lunatic asylum and was used for this purpose for ten years. On the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854 the Admiralty claimed the building. The military patients were removed and the place fitted to receive wounded from the Baltic, but none ever came. When peace was declared the War Office again took over the hospital and it was used by them as a convalescent hospital for soldiers. In 1863 the Admiralty again claimed the building, this time for the use of naval lunatics. Various alterations were then made. The boundaries were enlarged by taking in ground on the north and west sides and by the purchase in 1865 of about ten acres from the Corporation of Yarmouth at a cost of £10,982. The deed of conveyance required that this ground shall be used for recreation purposes only, and it contains a covenant that if the hospital should cease to be used as a lunatic asylum the Corporation should have the right to repurchase the recreation ground at the original price. The site of the hospital proper, excluding the recreation ground, together with the hospital buildings, residences, etc., is approximately twelve acres, so that the total land connected with the institution at the present time is about twenty-two acres. The hospital has been continuously used by the Admiralty as a mental hospital since 1863 and is still so used.

A serious legal difficulty has, however, arisen. During the nineteenth century the Navy and the Army dealt with their own lunatics in Service hospitals. The Lunacy Act of 1842 giving Metropolitan Commissioners rights of inspection of all asylums specifically refers to the "Royal Military and Naval Hospitals and all other, if any public asylum's for the reception of insane persons." This included the Yarmouth Hospital. The hospital was inspected by Commissioners during the period it was used as a military lunatic asylum—that is, in 1844 and 1845. Its use was thus recognised under the Act of 1842. The Act of 1842 was repealed by the Lunacy Act of 1845. This Act refers to "any person confined as a State lunatic, or a lunatic under the order of any Criminal Court of Justice 199 … or other person detained" etc., and makes provision for their being visited. The expression "State lunatic" was deemed to include lunatics in naval and military hospitals and on this view the use of the hospital by the War Office as a military lunatic asylum and by the Admiralty as a naval lunatic asylum was justified. So matters remained until 1890. In 1889 and 1890 further changes in the law were introduced. The Lunacy Acts Amendment Act, 1889, introduced various amendments, but did not interfere with the provision as to State lunatics contained in the Act of 1845. This Act, however, never came into force because, before the date at which it was to come into force arrived, the Lunacy Act, 1890, was passed and repealed the Act of 1889 and a great many other Acts.

The Act of 1890 purported to be a consolidating Act. It repealed the Act of 1845 without substituting anything specific to meet the case of persons confined as State lunatics, or without making any specific provision for naval or military hospitals for the reception of the insane. That Act did, however, provide a very wide saving clause for "any jurisdiction or practice established, confirmed or transferred by or under any enactment repealed by this Act." All reference to State lunatics was omitted from the Act of 1890. It is difficult to ascertain now what view the Admiralty took of the altered state of the law: whether they took the view that the saving clause justified the continuance of the hospital for the treatment of mental cases; or whether they did not, in fact, notice the full effect of the change introduced by the Act of 1890. In any case the hospital continued to be used for mental cases. All the time it has been so used it has been inspected by the Lunacy Commissioners, and is now inspected by the Board of Control, under agreement with the Admiralty.

Twenty years after the passing of the Act of 1890, doubts were raised for the first time as to the legal position of the hospital as a place for the reception of mental patients. It is clear that the hospital does not come within the definition of a lunatic asylum or licensed house or licensed hospital in the Act of 1890, and if these are the only places authorised to receive mental patients, then the Admiralty are out of court. On the other hand, there is the saving clause of 200 the Act of 1890 that I have mentioned. What was the object of that saving clause, if not to protect cases such as that of Yarmouth, bearing in mind that the Act purports to be a consolidating Act and not an amending Act? Next the Lunacy Acts do not specifically bind the Crown. Could the hospital be excluded from the operation of the Lunacy Acts on this account? It was not clear whether, from 1845 onwards, the Services claimed the Prerogative as a matter of treatment of persons under discipline, or made a wider claim of the Crown to detain lunatics. There are other legal points, and the whole problem was very puzzling.

In view of these doubts, the question whether the hospital should be discontinued as a mental hospital or whether legislative sanction should be obtained to continue its use as such was under consideration by the Admiralty when the War broke out, and the legal position was left in abeyance. During the War arrangements were made for the admission of a number of ex-naval patients chargeable to the Ministry of Pensions. The Admiralty have now had the whole matter carefully reviewed and have resolved to proceed with this Bill, and thus put all doubts to rest. The Scottish Office and the authorities in Northern Ireland concur in the Bill. The Admiralty take the view that great hardship would be entailed by the dispersal of the present patients. The accommodation for mental patients throughout the country is extremely limited, and difficulty would be experienced in obtaining accommodation for the cases at present at Yarmouth and any future cases occurring in the Royal Navy. The Ministry of Pensions are also anxious to increase the number of patients they have under treatment at Yarmouth by removing them from other institutions, and thus providing further accommodation for civil patients. The Bill makes provision for patients being received from the Ministry of Pensions.

If the hospital is discontinued by the Admiralty as a mental hospital, the patients will, as a rule, be sent to their places of settlement and be received in the county asylums. If this is done, the cost to the State, so far as it can be ascertained, will be higher than if the patients were treated at Yarmouth. It has therefore been decided to seek Parliamentary authority for the retention of 201 the hospital as a place of mental treatment. The present number of patients in the hospital is 119. Several of the wards are not in use pending the decision on the present Bill. There is normal peace accommodation for 213 patients, but this number could be increased to 260 by some reorganisation of the existing accommodation and without any structural alterations or additions. It is estimated that the number of naval entries which may be expected annually would, with a Force of approximately 90,000, be about ten. If the Bill is passed, the Ministry of Pensions intend to transfer patients to Yarmouth from other institutions and to utilise, (together with naval patients) the whole accommodation. The number that would be thus transferred by the Ministry of Pensions would probably be from 100 to 130.

The Bill also provides for the reception of voluntary patients under Clause 5. These provisions are similar to those in the Mental Treatment Act, 1929. Their insertion has been deemed advisable in view of the advance of medical science and the possibility of treating menial disabilities at a non-certifiable stage. It is considered that, in view of its nature, such treatment should be on a voluntary basis. I may add that no voluntary patients have hitherto been received at Yarmouth. Another provision to which I should like to direct your Lordships' attention is Clause 8, which is intended to indemnify those in charge of the hospital and their subordinates against legal action in connection with the past use of the hospital. If it should be held by a competent Court that the Admiralty acted without lawful authority, then, as they were acting in good faith and in the public interest, it is right that they should be protected. Likewise, as the officers were acting under the orders of their superiors, they, should be protected from any claims that might be brought against them. The clause also protects officers who may act outside their jurisdiction under the Bill but in good faith. This is taken from Section 330 of the Lunacy Act, 1890. These are, briefly, the reasons for the Bill and a statement of its main provisions. I ask for it the favourable consideration of your Lord ships. I beg to move.

LORD SANDHURST

My Lords, before this Bill is read a second time, I should like to ask my noble friend one or two questions about it. In the first place, I wish to congratulate the Government on their decision not to discontinue the Royal Naval Hospital at Great Yarmouth as a mental hospital, It has been known for some time that the matter was under consideration, and it was doubtful, at least, how long the patients would be retained there, and I may say that not only to me, but also to other of the Lunacy Visitors, to which body I belonged at that time, this was a matter of considerable apprehension, because we did feel that it might entail very great hardship upon patients already in the hospital.

That is all I have to say on the general subject, but there are one or two other matters, which deal rather with Committee points, to which I would like to refer. I notice that in the first clause two certificates of medical practitioners are required, but there is no provision in the Bill as to how those certificates are to be framed; only that they are to be certificates that the person is of unsound mind and a proper person to be taken charge of and detained. In the Mental Treatment Act there are carefully drawn up forms of certificates, and I should have thought that it would have been convenient to put into this Bill a clause requiring the certificates to be in a prescribed form, and enabling the Admiralty to prescribe the forms, which no doubt would be brought into consonance with those provided for by the Mental Treatment Act.

The next point to which I would like to refer arises under Clause 5, to which my noble friend has already referred. It deals with the reception of voluntary patients. It may be within your Lordships' recollection that when the Mental Treatment Act was before the House considerable difficulty was experienced in framing a clause, which would properly define what was required of a patient to entitle him to apply for voluntary treatment. It was felt that it was difficult to say at any moment that mental illness existed. It was also felt, I think, that whereas many persons might be found to admit that they were apprehensive of mental sickness, many of them would hesitate before admitting that they 203 were actually the subjects of mental illness. I believe the phrase ultimately adopted was hammered out in the House of Commons, and that is the phrase appearing in the Mental Treatment Act. It is in that Act not "any person who is suffering," as in this clause, but "any person who is desirous of voluntarily submitting himself to treatment for mental sickness and who makes a written application for the purpose." What I submit to the Government is that where, as is stated by my noble friend, the object is the same, it should be expressed in the same language as is used in other Acts of Parliament.

Further, I notice that there is no provision for the reception of involuntary patients, other than under certification, in this hospital, except in the case of those who have been detained in other institutions already. From the title of the Bill I gather that that is not within the contemplation of the Bill, and that it is thought sufficient that a patient desiring admission, or whose friends desire admission for him, should first be received into a civil hospital and then in suitable cases transferred to the Royal Naval Hospital. That may be the intention of the Bill, and I propose to say nothing further on that. The only other point, which was also mentioned by my noble friend, arises on subsection (2) of Clause 8. The subsection appears to me to be rather drastic, and to call for some explanation, because it says:—

No proceedings, civil or criminal, shall be brought against any person in respect of the reception or detention of any person in Yarmouth Hospital before the commencement of this Act. I do not suppose there is any person who has any cause of action, but it does seem to me that the clause is sufficiently retrospective to deprive a person who had a cause of action of that cause of action. I realise that in so far as there is doubt whether any person detained in the hospital was lawfully detained there it is necessary that the clause should be somewhat wide, but I should have thought that same less drastic words might have been inserted which would protect all bona fide acts done before this Bill was passed. I only throw that out as a suggestion, and I do not wish to detract by one word from the satisfaction which I feel in seeing this Bill before the House.