§ Captain BOWYERasked the Minister of Pensions how frequently representatives of his Ministry visits the Bucks County Mental Hospital at Stone; and will he ensure that as soon as an ex-service man shows signs of improved mentality he will be taken from such an1256W asylum and placed in a convalescent home?
§ Mr. MACPHERSONA medical officer of the Ministry has visited the Bucks County Asylum on three occasions since July of this year for the sole purpose on each occasion of examining and reporting on individual ex-service men under treatment there; otherwise no representative of the Ministry has yet visited the Bucks County Asylum. Under recent arrangements, however, a medical officer attached to Ministry headquarters now visits, in conjunction with the Commissioners of the Board of Control, mental institutions in which ex-service men are under treatment as private patients, and this officer will visit the Bucks County Asylum in due course. Patients who are detained in mental institutions under certificates of lunacy are under the care of the Board of Control, and my Department has no power to authorise their discharge.