Chasing the ambulance. The emerging crisis in the preservation of modern health records.

Abstract

In this brief essay we argue that the best efforts of archivists, scholars, and practitioners within the National Health Service have not prevented the wholesale destruction of the bulk of patient records created during the twentieth century. This is a matter of vital concern not merely for historians of modern medicine. Important clinical work has frequently been undertaken on materials which have survived, usually by chance or by the foresight of physicians, matrons, and administrators. Even the significant fragments of historical documents which remain in the hands of the health authorities have been threatened by the continuing drive to reduce storage and maintenance costs within hospitals. Archivists and academics have struggled to address the problems of sampling, storage, and access which the enormous bulk of modern records present. In this essay we suggest that the first step must be to raise awareness amongst professionals and the public of the extent to which any future history of the medical services and of patient care will depend on a reasonable rate of survival of these records. The second step must be to confront the problem of resources and the inevitable task of selection which must form the foundations of any long-term policy of preservation. An initial survey of archival materials in Devon indicates that the records of community health care form a substantial and potentially invaluable research source for future historians, though their relevance has rarely been recognized within the academic community.