ABSTRACT
By 1929, hospital providers in Leeds and Sheffield had assembled the buildings, the doctors and specialties, the finance and the political structures to deliver a modern hospital service to their cities. However, this process took place without any overarching control, with each hospital or authority free to inaugurate any service they wished or could afford. As a result duplication was common and its potential to multiply was embedded in the 1929 Local Government Act which had encouraged the municipal authorities to take on the delivery of general hospital provision. In particular, orthopaedics, maternity and cancer saw the closest working, as these were the areas where expertise was limited, demand was high, state support was available or patients required both acute and long-term treatment. Although surgery remained the primary treatment for cancer throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
