ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the numbers, quality and morale of medical and nursing staff. It starts by furnishing basic information about staff and staffing ratios, and describes the work of the hospital as senior staff see it, how these staff are recruited and what qualifications they have. The data on nursing staff are drawn from formal interviews with 141 matrons and chief male nurses in main hospitals and subsidiary units; in hostels it was usually the warden who was interviewed. Each hospital had a medical superintendent, though in some instances these superintendents were attached to the local mental hospital and included the subnormality hospital or ancillary units in their jurisdiction. The chapter also describes the physical and organizational problems with which staff have to cope, and the crucial relationship between morale and patterns of communication within the hospital. It attempts to provide a picture of the medical and nursing staff and their relationship both to each other and to the patients.
