§ Mr. Iremongerasked the Minister of Health what percentage of hospital beds is occupied by patients suffering from mental illness.
§ Mr. Iain MacleodAbout 36 per cent. for mental illness. Including mental deficiency, the figure would be about 42 per cent.
§ Mr. Iremongerasked the Minister of Health how many extra mental nurses are required to bring the mental nursing service to a level of numbers considered adequate to cope with optimum staffing requirements of mental hospitals.
§ Mr. Iain MacleodThe number has been estimated by the hospital authorities at about 10,000, for mental and mental deficiency hospitals. New and up-to-date estimates are now being obtained.
§ Mr. Iremongerasked the Minister of Health to what extent mental hospitals recruit mental assistants direct as such or to what extent prospective mental assistants are obliged to join as student nurses and then become mental assistants after failing to qualify as mental nurses.
§ Mr. Iain MacleodI have advised the hospital authorities to recruit mental nursing assistants directly, and to exercise careful selection in the recruitment of student nurses, but I have no precise information as to the extent to which these measures are being taken.
§ Mr. Iremongerasked the Minister of Health what percentage of student nurses at mental hospitals has failed to qualify as mental nurses; what percentage has become mental assistants; and what percentage has left the service in the last period for which figures are conveniently available.
§ Mr. Iain MacleodThe rate of wastage of student mental nurses was estimated, in an investigation covering the years 1948 to 1953, to be about 60 per cent. I have no information to show how many student nurses became nursing assistants and how many left the hospital service.
§ Mr. Iremongerasked the Minister of Health the average lapse of time between claim and award of increases of remuneration of mental nurses since the Nurses and Midwives Whitley Council was 170W established; and how this lapse of time compares with awards made in respect of claims by other councils in other services.
§ Mr. Iain MacleodThe number of increases since the Whitley Council's original salaries came into effect in 1949 is too small for an average to have any significance. In one case the lapse of time between the date of the claim and the operative date of the increase was three months; in another, four. Intervals of this length are quite common in salary negotiations. In the third case, where the claim related to mental nurses only, there was an interval of seventeen months before the award of increases by the arbitration court. This is quite exceptional, both the negotiations and the arbitration proceedings being unusually protracted.