The Hospital and Its Patients1

This chapter discusses the significance of the hospital as a social institution. It is one of the most complex of social institutions — an institution which in recent years has grown immensely in its complexities, and to which scholars have added newer complications as a result of the development of the National Health Service. Now, in this situation, the chapter suggests three main dangers. The first danger is that increasing complexity in structure, functions, and administration can lead to increasing economic and social costs without a proportional rise in value rendered to the community. The second danger is that the ends or aims of hospital work may be obscured by excessive preoccupation with means. The third danger is represented by scientific and technological advance.