Catalogue description Ministry of Pensions and successors: Disablement Services Branch Records

This series contains files of the Disablement Services Branch of the Ministry of Pensions and its successors on the provision of aids and appliances for the disabled.

The files in this series include records of individual disabled persons' applications for assistance, and files illustrating the history of the research and development and supply of vehicles, limbs and appliances.

Researchers' attention is drawn to PIN 38/299, which contains a history of the former invalid service, compiled by a member of the Disablement Services Branch.

The file series represented in this series include:

• the HAD series of the Headquarters Appliance Division, which records the services performed for war pensioners and, after 1948, the National Health Service disabled;
• the HM series relating to Ministry of Pensions hospitals;
• the HP series, relating to hospitals, which are concerned with the hospital staff of the optical appliance depot, and complaints about the treatment of pensioners and details of their medical condition in the Ministry's war pension homes;
• a representative sample of disabled persons' individual case files, the H series, which relates to certain special functions administered by the branch headquarters, mainly concerned with the supply and maintenance of vehicles; and
• the different series of the many separate artificial limb and appliance centres (ALACs), which relate to locally issued vehicles, limbs and appliances. A random, representative sample of these files from the offices at Leeds, Manchester and Portsmouth are included.

Although the HAD, HM and HP series were not introduced until 1953, they also include many of the older Ministry of Pensions papers. This series also contains one file from the WHG series (which was introduced in 1980).

Other records of the Disablement Services Branch will be found in BN 59

Other records of the Working Party on Artificial Limb and Appliance Services (McColl Working Party) are in BN 75

Files from the HM series will also be found in MH 120