‘The Corruption of Care’

The newspaper story which broke with the Times letter quoted at the end of chapter 2 contained many of the ingredients from which scandals are constructed. One of the signatories, Barbara Robb, was a claims-maker of the first rank. Founder of AEGIS (Aid for Elderly in Government Institutions), Mrs Robb was the mobilising spirit behind the attention which was now drawn to conditions in some of Britain’s oldest and least-well-resourced institutions. Life within the hospitals in which geriatric medicine was practised continued to reflect their Poor Law heritage. The daily routine relied upon a series of practices which Goffman identified as characteristic of ‘total’ institutions. The enclosed nature of the world which emerged in the wake of the Times letter can be gauged from this extract, taken from one of the early Inquiry Reports which was to follow the AEGIS agitation which was now set in train. A psychiatric social worker had complained about the reception afforded to her father, referred to as Mr Tasburg, on admission to Friern Hospital. In response, the Report (25) records the account of the Charge Nurse responsible: it was his practice as a Charge Nurse to request relatives to take home articles that the hospital would supply: and he had naturally been reluctant to allow Mr Tasburg to keep a razor as he might still have suicidal tendencies ... the patient’s money (except loose change) had been handed in to the Admissions Office together with other articles, as was the prescriber procedure with which the Committee find no fault; and that Mr Tasburg had wrapped the loose change in a handkerchief and put it under his pillow

Charge (physics) · Government (linguistics) · Newspaper · Political science · Health Services Management and Policy · History · Law · Legal and cultural studies analysis · Medicine

• A Certain Moment

  David R Webb, D Webb•The British Journal of Social Work•2010

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