Accountability, Entitlement, and Control Issues and Voluntary Hospital Funding c1860–1939

SUMMARY

New income sources, revised organizational principles, treatment charges and a broader social range of patients featured in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century voluntary hospitals. Participation in service organization and patient entitlement are neglected themes in discussion of the voluntary hospital system. They complicate presentations of popular support or ideological commitment to voluntarism, or oppositional advocacy of municipal or state services. Utilizing contemporary publications relating to hospital management, publicity, and contributory schemes, tension and conflict within voluntary effort are examined. Financial assistance did not signify full endorsement of voluntarism or deference to established hospital or medical authority, and later support for the NHS may not reflect a sea change in popular opinion concerning healthcare.

voluntarism, voluntary hospitals, contributory schemes, finance, philanthropy, participation, accountability, social control