Appreciating that, due to the scale of things, this may be a really daft question...
but....
Did the clearing stations & hospitals etc keep such records ?
If they did - Are any surviving? in any form? anywhere ?

Thanks, in advance, for any replies (even if it is - "yes that is a daft question")


*Sorry - Posted in wrong group - I thought it was going into "western front" -able to edit but not delete

I think that casualty return forms only survive for 1 or 2 regiments if thats any help

Quite a few UK hospital have them but apply the 100 year rule of confidentiality. The Military Macclesfield Parkside Hospital admissions book is at the Chester Records Office. I was advised by them to wait until 2018 before I can view it! Providing I'm still around that is.

Best of luck,

Steve

We have had quite a few discussions on this over the years, and the upshot is that there are few hospital or medical unit records in existence.

As a counterexample, I recall a thread a year or two ago when one of our posters got lucky. You might follow the excitement here .

On another thread today I posted a link to the index of existing records of No 3 Canadian General Hospital. I am posting the detail below. You will notice that stuff like admission and discharge books exist for this case. However, this hospital seems like an exception.


RG9 III, volume 4570 includes the following files: Admissions and discharges (3 ledgers), 1915-1919 ( folder 1, files 1-3); Bacteriology. Register of treatments, 1916 ( folder 1, file 4); Instructions re burials, 11 Sept. 1918 ( folder 1, file 5); Medical charge of rest camps, 23 April - 28 Sept. 1917 ( folder 1, file 6); Chest wards equipped by Canadian Red Cross, 19 March 1916 - 15 Nov. 1917 ( folder 1, file 7); List of air raid casualties at Marquise, 25 Aug. 1918 ( folder 1, file 8); Compensation for civilians, 31 Dec. 1915 - 7 March 1916 ( folder 1, file 9); Comforts from Christmas Cheer Fund, 6 Sept. 1916-9 Jan. 1919 ( folder 1, file 10); Record of deaths, 17 Aug. 1915-14 April 1919 ( folder 2, file 1); Returns of sick and wounded, 8 Aug. - 6 Sept. 1915 ( folder 2, file 2); Reports on ear, nose and throat cases,. 9 Jan. - 14 Dec. 1918 ( folder 2, file 3); Returns re-economy, 29 Sept. 1917 - 4 Sept. 1918 ( folder 2, file 4); Concert party, orchestra, entertainment, 14 Oct. 1916 - 30 April 1919 ( folder 2, files 5-7); Establishment: personnel and beds, 23 Nov. 1916 - 30 April 1919 ( folder 2, file 8); Correspondence re medical equipment, 1915 ( folder 2, file 9); Orders and instructions re fires, 24 Nov. 1916 - 3 Jan. 1917 ( folder 2, file 10); Circular correspondence and reports, re. history of the war, 31 July 1917 - 17 May 1918 ( folder 2, file 11); Returns re influenza, 7 Nov. 1918 - 15 Jan. 1919 ( folder 2, file 12); Correspondence re Khaki University of Canada, 1918 ( folder 2, file 13).

RG9 III, volume 4571 includes the following files: Moves from Camiers to Boulogne, 25 July 1915 - 13 Jan. 1916 ( folder 3, file 1); Nominal rolls: officers, nursing sisters, NCOs and men, 15 Jan. - 5 Sept. 1916 ( folder 3, file 2); Standing orders, 27 Feb. 1916 - 13 Sept. 1916 ( folder 3, files 3 - 6); 3 ledgers containing pathological reports, 1916-1918 ( folder 4, files 1-3); Classification of manpower and economy, 31 June 1917 - 31 Aug. 1918 ( folder 5, file 1); Orders and instructions re Portuguese troops, 18 Jan. - 8 Oct. 1918 ( folder 5, file 2); Disposal of Russian, Italian and French prisoners of war, 20 Dec. 1918- 27 Feb. 1919 ( folder 5, file 3); Reports to DDMS, Boulogne Base re sanitation, 1 June 1917 - 3 July 1918 ( folder 5, file 4); Consolidated statistics, 1917-1918 ( folder 5, file 5); Minutes of meetings, Medical Society, 28 Sept. 1916 - 13 March 1917 ( folder 5, file 6).

RG9 III, volume 4572 includes the following files: Records of surgical operations (2 ledgers), 1917 - 1918 ( folder 6, files 1-2); Correspondence re x-ray machines, equipment, 1915-1918 ( folder 7, files 1-12); Correspondence re YMCA, 1915-1919 ( folder 7, file 13); Visits, inspections, parades, 1917 -1918 ( folder 7, file 14).

I will never understand how soldiers full papers can get released but we still have to wait 100 yrs for other things
- unless some one can

I have worked with maybe 20 Canadian records all come with medical & pay records, they are better than any other.

Mooshwah

The National Archive Kew hold a number of files within the MH106 series, details as follows.
If you go to their site and search MH106, browse from here and expand the file, it will list all of the CCS, Field Hospitals etc they hold records for and the covering dates.

"" MH106
The records in this series are a representative selection of several types of medical records from various theatres of war. They were brought together by the Medical Research Committee and the British Museum during and immediately after the 1914 to 1918 War for use in statistical studies of the treatment for injuries sustained, and diseases contracted, by British troops. The records were later used by the Ministry of Pensions, which inherited them, and subsequently by the War Pensions Branches of its successor departments, to verify claims for war disability pensions.
The records in this series are a representative selection of the original collection. The records include admission and discharge registers from hospitals and casualty clearing stations, field ambulances, an ambulance train and a hospital ship. There are also medical sheets, selected to illustrate the diversity of diseases contracted, injuries received and treatments prescribed and medical cards relating to individuals in selected regiments, together with means of reference to the various types of record and volumes containing information on the provenance and use of the original collection.""

I have read some of these in the past and they can provide some useful info. You'd have to be really lucky to find someone your after, but you never know.

Stuart

As a short reply to the original question:
In theory every medical unit kept an A&D book as it was called....
Admissions and Discharge Book.

I assume for a while they survived as they would have bene used to compile tables in the Medical Services Official History. When looking at the Somme in 1916 for example there are figures for Admisisons inot FA and CCS's.....but I believe all these books are now misisng in action probably killed off....except the sample ones referred to earlier.

Thanks all for replies - been away for a couple of weeks (hence not replying earlier)

Army Form W.3555 Treatment Card

The card of which this is marked "Copy" {which was "given to the man"} was to be sent to Local War Pensions,etc; Committee,where the man proposes to reside,when he is about to be invalided from the Service & discharged from Hospital.
[In the case of a man previously discharged the card was to be clearly marked in Red ink "Post discharge case"]
This particular A.F:W.3555 concerned my Great~Uncle Frederick Vanhinsbergh 202239 6th Bn;Royal West Kent Regt;who was due to be discharged on 3rd December 1918 suffering from Neurasthenia,from the Ewell {County of London War} Hospital,Epsom,dated 28th November 1918.

If your man served with the Canadians, his hospital records should be in his military file in the Canadian National Archives and can be ordered through their online service.

This is interesting in one case. Spike Island was written by Philip Hoare and is an account of the history of the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley. In one part of the book he writes that with the destruction of the building in the 1960s, all the hospital records were lost. This may be the case for most of the records. However, they are not all lost. In fact, many of these exist within the Canadian files in the case of wounded soldiers who stayed there.

He was with 1st Battallion King's liverpool Reg't. (My GGF)

The only thing I've been able to find is snippet from the archive's of a local newspaper at the central library -a copy of the letter to his wife (My GGM of course) from the Chaplain, in which it states :-
"..... He was quite all right when I saw him on Saturday. He had a broken elbow; in fact, I was watching them dressing the wound and just left him some pious books he had asked for, from the Padre I have succeeded."

I take it that he must've been sparing her feelings. Rather than a broken elbow - his injuries must've been such to cause him to request the books - and he died the following morning.