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THE MINISTER ON STATISTICS
1015
departments. Mobile E.E.G. units might be
suitable in
sparsely
populated areas. reports should be issued only by the consultant in E.E.G. consultants are few. Training is now provided only at the National Hospital; and at least one more postgraduate teaching centre is needed. Moreover, there are so few senior registrar appointments that experience is hard to gain. The specialty would be more attractive if consultant posts carried opportunities for research. The training of E.E.G. technicians is now organised by the joint educational board of the E.E.G. Society and the Electrophysiological Technologists Association. But instruction is given in London alone. Technicians are scarce; a proportion of three to every two E.E.G. machines would allow better use of E.E.G.
charge. But
expensive equipment. The college last reported on this subject in 1958. In the intervening four years only one E.E.G. consultant has been appointed, and, says the new report, departments have continued to be opened haphazardly without regard to regional needs. THE MINISTER ON STATISTICS AT the annual conference of the Institute of Hospital Administrators on May 4, Mr. Enoch Powell, the Minister of Health, complained that hospital statistics were often inaccurate and misleading. Figures for the numbers of staff employed, for the hospital bed complement ", and for the lengths of waiting-lists formed the basis of future plans. Unless these statistics were exact and meaningful, estimates of future needs would be wrong.
Together, these comprised the "total bed complement" which had to be related to the population served by the hospital. Even if these figures were accurately returned, they did not reveal overcrowding; " beds properly available " would be a far more useful guide for planning. Waiting-lists The balance between supply and demand was assessed by the length of waiting-lists. But these must include only patients who would at once accept a bed if it were offered to them. The list must be up-to-date, and not include patients dead, recovered, or already in hospital. The Minister intends to issue a memorandum advising on the revision of waiting-lists for chronic-sick and geriatric patients.
The Minister emphasised that his concern over hospital statistics did not stem from fear that they would reveal politically embarrassing shortages. He wanted figuies that were neither cooked nor half-baked, but true. At present the pretended statistics were no more than a conglomerated fiction.
Conference
TELEVISION AND THE CHILD
"
Interpretation of Figures The more efficient organisation of an existing department would be reflected in the statistics only by an increase in the number of patients treated; the better service given would be indicated by neither bigger staff nor greater expenditure. Further, because the waiting-list might well have been reduced, the returned figures could be interpreted as evidence, not of greater efficiency, but of reduced demand. Conversely, greater expenditure on a service might reflect waste rather than expansion. Establishments Figures for the number of staff employed must be meaningful, said the Minister. Estimates of the numbers of staff which it was intended to employ during the year should be realistic, and should not greatly exceed reasonable hopes for recruitment. Similarly, the " approved staff complement "-the number needed to do an approved volume of work to an approved standard-should be neither a vague aspiration nor a ceiling not to be exceeded. " In many cases," he continued, "we simply do not have ... the data which are needed in order to fix complements on a consistent and reasonable basis." It was therefore almost impossible to plan ahead, to anticipate changes in supply and demand, and to devise new methods of deploying existing staff to meet them. Bed Statistics At present, bed statistics were " far from reliable ". The Minister said that he had been presented with figures which were meaningless even to the hospital authority issuing them; their origin was " lost in the mists of antiquity ". Figures for beds temporarily out of use because of maintenance must not include those in process of conversion for a new purpose. Beds out of use owing to lack of staff should include only those erected and equipped for potential occupants; wards closed years ago, where no effort was being made to recruit staff for their reopening, did not come into this category. Unstaffed beds might be out of use because they represented the infectious diseases’ reserve, or because major structural
alterations
were
under way.
AT the biennial conference of the Nursery School Association, held in London on May 3 under the chairmanship of Dr. DAVID MORRIS, Television and the Child was discussed by Dr. HILDE HIMMELWEIT, reader in social psychology in the University of London. Dr. Himmelweit said that for the child the world had become much larger, with increased facility for travel and opportunities for meeting people. Television was one of the main sources of this wider experience which, although virtually second hand, had nevertheless a vivid impact-so much so that this could rightly be called the television era. The Nuffield Foundation study revealed that only 6% of infant teachers actively discussed the television programmes their pupils saw. The teachers who recognised and discussed television reacted differently to their pupils, finding a lower prevalence of presumed harmful effects such as fatigue, pallor, and inattention at school. The positive effects of television included new knowledge from seeing skyscrapers and snow and the people of different countries. The negative effects consisted mostly in emotional disturbance: in the programmes children looked at with their older siblings and the family, they saw adults in conflict; and the stress the children experienced was considerable. Experimental work had been carried out to establish how children of different ages reacted to the visual impact of television. In Germany Beatrix Potter’s " Tony, the Town Mouse ", with which German children were unfamiliar, had been used. The results showed that the young child’s response In many instances there was apparently was idiosyncratic. a boomerang effect which could outdo the good intended by evoking apprehension and fears, as in the programme " Bon Voyage " which, while it gave viewers a better understanding of travel abroad, also made many frightened at their lack of a
foreign language. Tastes were built and shaped by the techniques used in television production, as well as by parents and older children. 70% of homes in this country had the television switched on from 5 P.M. ; but despite this, children seemed to acquire the facility for not taking in what did not interest them.
By selection and discrimination, television could become similar to our libraries and play an important part in helping children to be better informed, more tolerant, and more
imaginative.
departments. Mobile E.E.G. units might be
suitable in
sparsely
populated areas. reports should be issued only by the consultant in E.E.G. consultants are few. Training is now provided only at the National Hospital; and at least one more postgraduate teaching centre is needed. Moreover, there are so few senior registrar appointments that experience is hard to gain. The specialty would be more attractive if consultant posts carried opportunities for research. The training of E.E.G. technicians is now organised by the joint educational board of the E.E.G. Society and the Electrophysiological Technologists Association. But instruction is given in London alone. Technicians are scarce; a proportion of three to every two E.E.G. machines would allow better use of E.E.G.
charge. But
expensive equipment. The college last reported on this subject in 1958. In the intervening four years only one E.E.G. consultant has been appointed, and, says the new report, departments have continued to be opened haphazardly without regard to regional needs. THE MINISTER ON STATISTICS AT the annual conference of the Institute of Hospital Administrators on May 4, Mr. Enoch Powell, the Minister of Health, complained that hospital statistics were often inaccurate and misleading. Figures for the numbers of staff employed, for the hospital bed complement ", and for the lengths of waiting-lists formed the basis of future plans. Unless these statistics were exact and meaningful, estimates of future needs would be wrong.
Together, these comprised the "total bed complement" which had to be related to the population served by the hospital. Even if these figures were accurately returned, they did not reveal overcrowding; " beds properly available " would be a far more useful guide for planning. Waiting-lists The balance between supply and demand was assessed by the length of waiting-lists. But these must include only patients who would at once accept a bed if it were offered to them. The list must be up-to-date, and not include patients dead, recovered, or already in hospital. The Minister intends to issue a memorandum advising on the revision of waiting-lists for chronic-sick and geriatric patients.
The Minister emphasised that his concern over hospital statistics did not stem from fear that they would reveal politically embarrassing shortages. He wanted figuies that were neither cooked nor half-baked, but true. At present the pretended statistics were no more than a conglomerated fiction.
Conference
TELEVISION AND THE CHILD
"
Interpretation of Figures The more efficient organisation of an existing department would be reflected in the statistics only by an increase in the number of patients treated; the better service given would be indicated by neither bigger staff nor greater expenditure. Further, because the waiting-list might well have been reduced, the returned figures could be interpreted as evidence, not of greater efficiency, but of reduced demand. Conversely, greater expenditure on a service might reflect waste rather than expansion. Establishments Figures for the number of staff employed must be meaningful, said the Minister. Estimates of the numbers of staff which it was intended to employ during the year should be realistic, and should not greatly exceed reasonable hopes for recruitment. Similarly, the " approved staff complement "-the number needed to do an approved volume of work to an approved standard-should be neither a vague aspiration nor a ceiling not to be exceeded. " In many cases," he continued, "we simply do not have ... the data which are needed in order to fix complements on a consistent and reasonable basis." It was therefore almost impossible to plan ahead, to anticipate changes in supply and demand, and to devise new methods of deploying existing staff to meet them. Bed Statistics At present, bed statistics were " far from reliable ". The Minister said that he had been presented with figures which were meaningless even to the hospital authority issuing them; their origin was " lost in the mists of antiquity ". Figures for beds temporarily out of use because of maintenance must not include those in process of conversion for a new purpose. Beds out of use owing to lack of staff should include only those erected and equipped for potential occupants; wards closed years ago, where no effort was being made to recruit staff for their reopening, did not come into this category. Unstaffed beds might be out of use because they represented the infectious diseases’ reserve, or because major structural
alterations
were
under way.
AT the biennial conference of the Nursery School Association, held in London on May 3 under the chairmanship of Dr. DAVID MORRIS, Television and the Child was discussed by Dr. HILDE HIMMELWEIT, reader in social psychology in the University of London. Dr. Himmelweit said that for the child the world had become much larger, with increased facility for travel and opportunities for meeting people. Television was one of the main sources of this wider experience which, although virtually second hand, had nevertheless a vivid impact-so much so that this could rightly be called the television era. The Nuffield Foundation study revealed that only 6% of infant teachers actively discussed the television programmes their pupils saw. The teachers who recognised and discussed television reacted differently to their pupils, finding a lower prevalence of presumed harmful effects such as fatigue, pallor, and inattention at school. The positive effects of television included new knowledge from seeing skyscrapers and snow and the people of different countries. The negative effects consisted mostly in emotional disturbance: in the programmes children looked at with their older siblings and the family, they saw adults in conflict; and the stress the children experienced was considerable. Experimental work had been carried out to establish how children of different ages reacted to the visual impact of television. In Germany Beatrix Potter’s " Tony, the Town Mouse ", with which German children were unfamiliar, had been used. The results showed that the young child’s response In many instances there was apparently was idiosyncratic. a boomerang effect which could outdo the good intended by evoking apprehension and fears, as in the programme " Bon Voyage " which, while it gave viewers a better understanding of travel abroad, also made many frightened at their lack of a
foreign language. Tastes were built and shaped by the techniques used in television production, as well as by parents and older children. 70% of homes in this country had the television switched on from 5 P.M. ; but despite this, children seemed to acquire the facility for not taking in what did not interest them.
By selection and discrimination, television could become similar to our libraries and play an important part in helping children to be better informed, more tolerant, and more
imaginative.