Q.H. Annual 1935

A FOREWORD
BY
SIR CHARLES GRANT ROBERTSON C.V.O., M.A., LL.D.

The "Q.H." Annual has rendered notable service to the Queens Hospital, for it has been the instrument of raising each year no small sum from all who have enjoyed what the Editor has provided. But with 1935, the "Q.H." enters a new chapter in its career; since January 1st was the "Appointed Day" on which both the Queens and the General Hospital ceased to exist as separate and independent institutions, and fused two historic and honourable traditions and records in the United Hospital and the United Board of Management.

This fusion in itself is a notable event in the evolution of Birmingham as a City; it is no less notable in the evolution of our Voluntary Hospital System. The amalgamation is a necessary stage in the creation of the Hospitals Centre. Memories are short; let me recall, therefore, the structure of the scheme. In 1925, a Joint Committee unanimously recommended that a Hospitals Centre should be established on the site, provided by the generosity of Messrs Cadbury, at Edgbaston, that the University Medical School should be transferred to this site, that the Centre should take the place of the separate extensions of the Queens and General, and that those two hospitals should be united under a single management. The Executive Board of the Centre, which then came into existence, agreed to make its main function the planning and erection of the Centre Hospital, the management of which could be handed over to the United Board, while the Executive Board remained the owner and could proceed with other features of the Centre Scheme.

The amalgamation and unification of the General and Queens are, therefore, an integral and essential part of the comprehensive scheme. Some time in 1937-38 the new Centre Hospital ought to be open for receiving patients. The United Board will then probably be invited to take over the management, and be responsible for administering three hospitals in a single co-ordinated system. How they will do it need not concern us at present.

But meanwhile the United Hospitals have to render their services to the community and make two ends meet. United, they need just as much help as in 1934 (indeed, rather more). The friends of the Queens Hospital will, I hope, realise that the duty of support is as imperative as ever it has been in the past. The United Hospital has no resources of its own; it has only the resources of the Queens and the General, under a single control.

But there is an additional reason for help. The more efficient the General and Queens are, the more easy will be the transition to the final stage - the new Centre Hospital. Friends of the Centre can, therefore, feel that if there were at one time divergent and conflicting loyalties - to the Queens, to the General, and to the Centre - the divergence and conflict are now merged and reconciled in the larger unity and the wider range. Each several part can now work for the all-embracing whole.

I can accordingly plead in this foreword for a wider circulation and a larger net return. The best way of showing our appreciation of what the Editor of "Q.H." has done in the past, and wishes to do now and in the future, is to double the sale. The article offered is well worth the trifle that is asked for it. If making two blades of grass grow where one grew before is a creditable achievement, then let every previous reader or subscriber dispose of two copies where only one was to his credit; and let that be his "good deed" for the day.

EDITOR'S NOTE

The Annual "Q.H." was first published in 1932, on behalf of the Queens Hospital, Birmingham, and, with the two following issues, resulted in the sum of £873 11s 1d being handed over to that Institution. The Queens Hospital has now been amalgamated with the General Hospital, thus forming the United Hospital, but it has been thought advisable, in view of the established reputation of the publication, to retain its original title.