§ 2.44 p.m.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask His Majesty's Government whether the action of the Regional Hospital Board in shutting down the Kingston Victoria Cottage Hospital and devoting the premises to other purposes is not a contravention of the undertaking of His Majesty's Government on October 17, 1946 (Lords Hansard, Vol. 143, cols. 388-9) at least in the spirit, in view of the past history of the hospital.]
§ LORD SHEPHERDMy Lords, the answer is in the negative. The debate mentioned related to the transfer of the endowments of voluntary hospitals to the Hospital Endowment Fund. The under-takings were that, so far as practicable, the transfer should not interfere with the observance of the objects of any endowment or lead to the shutting down of any hospital. Neither of these undertakings has any relation at all to the case of the Kingston Victoria Hospital whose endowments were transferred in 1948. This hospital is not now being closed down. Its use is being changed so that it can meet one of the most urgent needs of the local population—that of gynæcological treatment.
LORD SALTOUNMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply, but I should like to ask a question which arises out of it. and in doing so I must preface it with what I remember of that occasion. We were at the time discussing an Amendment, and I was anxious that when the endowments of a hospital had been taken over by the Government the hospital which had been formed to discharge the purposes of the endowment should be maintained and should not be closed 273 down. That was the purpose of my question. It was not a question as to what was to happen to the hospital, but how it was to be used. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he can tell me what the answer of the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor did mean. The noble and learned Viscount said:
What is suggested is that the hospital should be kept going, ' so far as practicable,' or something of that sort. If it became unnecessary to maintain a hospital there owing, for instance, to shifting of the population …I think it is common ground that there has been no change in Kingston. There-fore, I should like to know what that assurance means. I should also like to ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that the proposed step is contrary, not only to the original terms of the endowments, but to the wishes of the local population, of the local doctors and, I believe, of the medical profession as a whole, and that the Ministry's own deputy medical officer has said in a letter that the alternative accommodation offered to the hospital is not what they ought to have or ought to take.
§ LORD SHEPHERDMy Lords, in my reply to the noble Lord's main Question, 1 indicated that the transfer of the endowments in the case of this hospital did not come within the terms of the debate or of the remarks of my noble and learned friend. That was the sole purpose of the noble Lord's first question, and I have been informed to that extent I am afraid that the latter part of his. second question went outside that limit, and I must ask for notice about it.