Red Cross Hospitals - Number of patients and costs

Kent the leading county

The annual report on the accounts of the Auxiliary Hospitals (the Red Cross War Hospitals at home) for the year ended December 31st 1918 shows that the number of patients treated during the war in those hospitals totalled nearly one-half of the entire casualties of the war. Excluding private hospitals, which were not in receipt of capitation grants, 1,260,523 patients were admitted, and were treated at an average cost of 3s. 8.78d. per patient per day for maintenance, and .83d. for administration, a total average cost per day of 3s. 9.61d. The total expenditure on the hospitals was £10,488,650, which excludes practically all expenditure in 1914, when no accounts were asked for, and the expenditure at a large number of hospitals in 1915, when the necessity of rendering accounts was not fully appreciated. Of the total expenditure, £7,760,727 was met by Army and Ministry of Pensions allowances, leaving over £2,500,000 to be found by voluntary public giving.

The six leading counties in the number of patients admitted were:-

Kent, 114,316; Lancashire (East) 83,619; Hampshire, 63,113; Surrey, 60,324; Cheshire 58,117; Sussex, 49,344.

Kent and fourteen other counties with more than 1,000 beds available during four years (1915-1918) succeeded in running their hospitals at a cost of less than 4s. per patient per day. In no case did the average daily cost of a patient's maintenance over the four years exceed 3s.11.2d. The total hospital expenditure in Kent was £771,176 which was less by about £6,000 than the total expenditure in Lancashire.

Of the total cost, £3,780,313, of 1,020 hospitals (which includes private hospitals), War Office and Pensions Ministry capitation grants supplied £2,933,842 and voluntary contributions the remaining £846,471, while gifts in kind amounted in value to £174,913 as compared with £151,680 in 1917. In hospitals with 50 beds or more the average daily cost of a patient was 3s.11.8d.; in those with 25 beds or less it was 4s. 3.4d.

Source: Bromley Public Library, Archive document 'Bromley VAD's Album 1912-1919' Ref: 686/

This is a newspaper article from an unknown newspaper. There is a copy of the document from which these figures were extracted in the archives of the St John Ambulance Association.