There is often something poignant about the out- patients' department
of a great hospital (as one of Miss Ruth Draper's incomparable sketches testifies) and the special King Edward's Hospital Fund committee that has just reported on methods in these departments, and in particular on the time of waiting involved, has not worked in vain. Evidence was given of some cases (admittedly rare) in which patients have been kept waiting six hours or more, and often enough when the period was far shorter the accommodation was gravely inadequate, and what may be mere inconvenience to persons in normal health can involve real strain and hardship to those who ex hypothesi are not. The committee is not very definite in its proposals for reform, the most practical being that as many patients as possible should be referred to general practitioners for treatment. That, of course, raises financial questions for the patient. Out-patient treat- ment, or its equivalent elsewhere, is of increasing import- ance An days when a new emphasis is rightly laid on preventive medicine, and with the voluntary hospitals overstrained as they are to-day, the question might with advantage be made the subject of further investigation yet. The present committee has done useful work in exploring the problem, but it has by no means solved it.
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