Why and How Accidents Occur

Abstract

In 1948 the National Health Service was established, described by many as the greatest triumph of post-war Britain. But it is no longer what its founder, the then Minister of Health, Nye Bevan, intended. Over half of the 2,655 hospitals were built before 1918 and much of its equipment is old and in need of replacement. The conditions staff and patients have to endure are sometimes appalling. A recent article by Bev Gilligan in the Daily Mirror (3 February 1983) vividly describes the scene in an outer-London hospital:

A porter holds an umbrella as an old woman is trundled through a maze of asbestos and plywood huts for an X-ray.

The huts that form the hospital — and too many others in Britain — date from the First and Second World Wars.

Heat from the pipes that stretch across the ward ceilings vanishes rapidly through the felt-covered roofs. In heavy rain, puddles form in the dark, dreary corridors.