MAJORITY ‘REP JRT 
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only the cost of maintenance but probably also that of 
medical and surgical services now given gratuitously. The 
Ministry of Health representative informed us that ‘‘ in the 
view of the Ministry it would not be desirable to attempt to 
include institutional treatment in the Acts as a statutory benefit. 
To provide the whole cost of in-patient treatment of insured 
persons would be extremely costly, and there is the difficulty that 
a statutory benefit implies some guarantee that the required 
accommodation will be available when it is needed. So far as 
regards voluntary hospitals no such guarantee could possibly 
be given. . . . Any scheme which resulted in preference 
being given to a particular class, however large that class might 
be, must in our view be prejudicial to the voluntary system.’ 
(Brock, Q. 23,852.) The Scottish Board of Health, who have 
urged strongly that this element should be included in any 
immediate extension, estimate that for Scotland alone an 
expenditure of about £160,000 a year would be required. 
For the whole of Great Britain the cost would be, on that basis, 
about £1,500,000, which, added to the cost of the three 
elements we have suggested above, would far exceed the amount 
available if, as we propose in Chapter XI, anything is to be 
done in the way of improving the cash allowances in sickness 
and disablement. Further, the Scottish estimate is only for 
part (about one-quarter) of the total cost, the assumption being 
that private subscriptions and donations would continue to meet 
the balance. This, we think, is an untenable assumption. Once 
the insurance funds were committed to meeting part of the cost 
of in-patient treatment, it would be highly probable that the 
bart would change gradually into the whole so far as insured 
Persons were concerned, and that a liability far beyond the 
Present estimate would ultimately be incurred. In any case 
We must point out that so long as the hospitals treat the insured 
and the uninsured on the same basis and retain, as they desire 
to do, complete independence in the management of their funds, 
16 would he very difficult to justify a systematic and substantial 
Support from the insurance scheme for this purpose. We think 
that the present arrangements, under which Approved Societies 
may give financial assistance to the hospitals under their schemes 
of additional benefits or by way of donations under Section 26 
of the Act (with a certain modification in the latter which we 
recommend in Chapter XIII), may be continued, but that no 
general provision of hospital treatment can be at present contem- 
Plated within the Insurance Scheme. We fully appreciate the 
great work the hospitals are doing alike for the insured and the 
Uninsured, and we do not underrate their financial difficulties. 
Bug both on grounds of finance and policy we accept the view of 
the Ministry of Health (as set out in reply to Q. 23,852) that an 
a ienaar of this nature must be left over for future considera- 
on. 
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