Local government health services in interwar England: problems of quantification and interpretation

This article provides a critical discussion of recent work on local government health care and health services in interwar England. A literature review examines case study approaches and comparative quantitative surveys, highlighting conventional and revisionist interpretations. Noting the differing selection criteria evident in some works, it argues that studies based upon a limited number of personal health services provide an insufficient basis for assessing local health activity and policy. There follows a regional study demonstrating various discrepancies between health financing data in local sources and those in nationally collated returns. These in turn give rise to various problems of assessment and interpretation in works relying on the latter, particularly with respect to services for schoolchildren and long-stay patients. The case study points to the importance of integrating poor law medical services in evaluations, and of learning more about the role of government subsidy in supporting expanding services.