A National Medical Service
What is most urgently needed is a national medical service which will give for all who cannot afford them hospital treatment and the services of consultants and of scientific aids to diagnosis and treatment whenever required; and which will provide nurses during illness treated at home, when this is asked for by the doctor in attendance.
Outside the operation of the National Insurance Act, these services have been provided to a steadily increasing extent, but in a characteristically British fashion. They have grown largely under voluntary management, and as exemplifications of Christian philanthropy; though official has rapidly overtaken the voluntary provision of hospitals and nursing, the two working side by side, each in their respective spheres, and on the whole with cordial coöperation. The extent to which institutional treatment with its more satisfactory arrangements is replacing the domiciliary treatment of disease may be gathered from the following striking facts:
In England and Wales
Of deaths from all causes, in 1881 = 1 in every 9
Of deaths from all causes, in 1910 = 1 in every 5
In London
Of deaths from all causes, in 1881 = 1 in every 5
Of deaths from all causes, in 1910 = 2 in every 5
occurred in public institutions.