About 5,000 patient case notes from the LHB1 C/C JW Struthers series were recently requested for consultation by a reader. These case notes are 80 years old so access was subject to a successful application to the Director of Public Health. While Laura, the Assistant Archivist, did the necessary paperwork to ensure proper access according to current legislation (the Data Protection Act 1998), I made sure that the case notes were physically accessible.
The case notes were in quite poor condition after they had been stored in folders that had caused a lot of creasing to the sheets. The case notes had also been used over the years so there was lots of tearing and surface dirt too.
Struthers case notes before re-housing
The case notes were surface cleaned and re-housed to ensure that they could be handled by the reader without causing further damage. It’s a labour intensive task but the end result is well worth the effort. I used the method for re-housing case notes that LHSA established over the course of several Wellcome Trust funded projects to re-house similar material. For more information about LHSA’s work to preserve our important case note collection please see our website.
Struthers case notes after re-housing
What a lot of work! Found your blog via the article in the Evening News about Florence Nightingale's letter. Look forward to hearing your news, and perhaps accessing your archives. Jo :-)
ReplyDeleteIt certainly was Jo! The reader's research was made possible after all of our Paper Conservator Ruth's hard work.
ReplyDeleteGlad you've tracked us down and you're very welcome to view the records, just contact us on lhsa@ed.ac.uk to make an appointment.
Laura, Assistant Archivist