Web access and database linkage for the British Voluntary Hospitals Database. (360G-Wellcome-084207_Z_07_Z)

The aim of the proposed project is to prepare and implement web access for an existing database of British voluntary hospital statistics from the period immediately preceding the establishment of the National Health Service. This database was prepared at the University of Portsmouth, 1996-98, by digitising annual statistical returns reported in several sets of hospitals yearbooks, principally Burdett's Yearbook of Hospitals and Charities, then subsequently the Red Cross/Order of St John Hospitals Yearbook. The content falls into three main areas: 1. Finance: sources of income and areas of expenditure 2. Utilisation: numbers of in- and out-patients 3. Provision: numbers of beds and medical and nursing staff The data cover the period 1891-1947, and there are 1,342 British hospitals in the database, with the levels of detail highest for larger institutions. The value of the database has been convincingly demonstrated by the applicantsin a series of publications including those in peer-reviewed journals. We nowwish to make this rich and important resource easily available online to otherresearchers. It will be of particular interest to historians of the hospital and of British social policy and to urban and local historians. Users will access the institutions through a map which takes them to a list of hospitals in a given town or county, and shows the data available. We will also link tothe Wellcome/National Archives 'Hospital Records Database' (HOSPREC), so that users searching for online information about hospital records can easily access our statistics through this site.