Records created or inherited by the Ministry of Health and successors, Local Government...

MH

1798-2001

Records created or inherited by the Ministry of Health and its successor the Department of Health and Social Security, Local Government Boards and related bodies relating to the provision of health and public health services.

Comprises records of:

• Poor Law Commission, Poor Law Board, General Board of Health and Local Government Board
• National Health Insurance Commissions and Joint Committee, Ministry of Health Insurance Department and Welsh Board of Health
• Central administrative records of the Ministry of Health
• Health Divisions
• Poor Law Division
• Legal Branch
• Establishment Division
• Accountant General's Department
• Regional offices
• Local and regional health bodies
• Government Lymph Establishment
• Anatomy Inspectorate
• Consultative councils
• Lunacy Commission, Board of Control and Special Hospitals
• General Nursing Council for England and Wales
• Wartime services
• League of Mercy
• Dental Estimates Board
• Medical Practices Committee
• Central Health Services Council and Central Council for Health Education
• Commissions and committees

MH 124, MH 125, MH 126, MH 127 and MH 138 are series not used.

The formation of the Ministry of Health in

RECO 1

Ministry of Health in

BN

Local Goverment Board and Ministry of Health in

HLG

See further records for:

Public Record(s)

English

• General Board of Health, 1848-1858
• Local Government Board, 1871-1919
• Ministry of Health, 1919-1968
• National Health Insurance Joint Committee, 1911-1948
• Poor Law Board, 1847-1871
• Poor Law Commission, 1834-1847
• Welsh Board of Health, 1919-1969

175 series

Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated

Topics

Mental illness

Nursing

Legal

Poverty

Medicine

Local Government

Before 1919 services in the field of health in England and Wales were subject to the overlapping responsibilities and interests of a number of government departments, including the Local Government Board, the National Health Insurance Commissions, the Board of Education, the Home Office and the Privy Council Office. The initiative for the concentration of these separate functions in a single ministry came from Lord Rhondda, president of the Local Government Board, 1916 to 1917, and food controller, 1917 to 1918, and Sir Robert Morant, chairman of the English National Health Insurance Commissions, 1912 to 1919. The proposal was considered by a ministerial committee in April 1917 and was later referred to a sub-committee of the Reconstruction Committee of the War Cabinet under the chairmanship of Christopher Addison. The sub-committee supported the proposal, which also secured the approval of the health insurance societies in October 1917. The conduct of inter-departmental negotiations and of preparations for the new ministry was committed to the Ministry of Reconstruction under Addison. The proposal received support from the reports of the Local Government (Maclean) and the Machinery of Government (Haldane) Committees of that ministry.

Establishment of the Ministry of Health and its functions

The Ministry of Health was established under the Ministry of Health Act 1919 and assumed from 1 July that year the powers and duties of the Local Government Board and the National Health Insurance Commissions for England and Wales, together with powers of the Privy Council under the Midwives Act. It did not, however, take over the other duties of the latter in connection with professional bodies and medical standards, and the Privy Council took over responsibility for the Medical Research Council, previously under the control of the National Health Insurance Joint Committee, though it was temporarily responsible to the minister of health from July 1919 to March 1920 for technical legislative reasons. The Machinery of Government Committee saw the work of the council as too wide for it to be subject to a department with functions limited to preventive medicine and to England and Wales alone. A Welsh Board of Health was also set up under the act to exercise such powers as the minister might delegate to it in respect of Wales. At the same date a separate Scottish Board of Health was established. Subsequently other transfers of function took place, the ministry taking over some powers from the Home Office and giving up others to other departments. The minister of health was also given certain supervisory powers over the General Nursing Council, established by an act of 1919 to carry out the registration of nurses.

The principal purpose of the new ministry was to consolidate under a single authority the medical and public health functions of the central government and the co-ordination and supervision of local health services in England and Wales. These functions were primarily the responsibility of the Health Divisions. Co-ordination of local medical services was greatly extended in connection with emergency and wartime services from 1938 to 1945, and these developments culminated in the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. This thereafter became the primary responsibility of the department, which had overall control of local and regional health bodies.

At its inception of the Ministry of Health had other important functions, most of which were later transferred to the other departments. Its second main function was the supervision of local government services, for which it had general as well as specific responsibilities. These included the co-ordination of functions exercised by other government departments, notably the Board (later Ministry) of Education, the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Transport. Oversight of local government services was discharged primarily by the Local Government Divisions, but specialised functions were exercised by the Housing Department and the Health and Planning Divisions. In July 1942 the ministry's statutory planning functions were transferred to the Ministry of Works and Planning, and in 1951 duties relating to local government administration, environmental health services and housing were assigned to the new Ministry of Local Government and Planning.

The Ministry was also responsible for the oversight and co-ordination of the system of national health insurance established in 1911 and that of contributory old age, widows' and orphans' pensions were introduced in 1925. These duties were carried out by the Insurance Department until April 1945 when, with the exception of residual medical benefit work, they were transferred to the Ministry of National Insurance. The Old Age Pensions branch dealt with appeals against decisions of local pension committees concerning non-contributory old age pensions.

A fourth main function of the ministry was the supervision of public assistance services. The traditional role of the poor law authorities declined on the introduction of national health and unemployment insurance and of contributory and non-contributory old age and widows' pensions. The mass and prolonged unemployment of the inter-war years led to the gradual transfer of financial responsibility for public assistance from local to central government and within central government to other departments, notably the Ministry of Labour, responsible for the insured unemployed, and the Unemployed Assistance Board. In 1940 supplementary pensions were introduced to assist those whose ordinary pensions were insufficient. Responsibility for such persons passed from the public assistance authorities to the Assistance Board, which became responsible to the minister of health and the secretary of state for Scotland for this part of its work. Ministerial responsibility for supplementary pensions passed to the Ministry of National Insurance in 1945. Residual functions in connection with public assistance were discharged by the Poor Law Division but abolished on the establishment of the National Assistance Board in 1948.

By 1951 the ministry was therefore concerned almost exclusively with national and local health, medical and hospital services. In 1968 it was absorbed into the new Department of Health and Social Security.