I am writing a fictional piece of work, and I want to avoid historical inaccuracy.
I want to write about a couple running a private medical institution in the early 20th century. Did private medical institutions exist as a somewhat profitable business back then?
Variables:
• I want the institution to be in Wales, but if that doesn't seem accurate, it can also be in England.
• The medical institution can offer different medical services: it can be a mental health facility/asylum, a general/normal hospital, or another type of niche medical institution. It has to be private, however.
Additionally, the couple running the insitution are fraudulent, in the sense that they keep patients longer than needed, give patients unnecessary services to take money from them, and commit other similar scams. They do this to accrue wealth beyond the profit the insitution legally makes. Upon being investigated, the couple hand out sufficient bribes to make law enforcement and/or investigators turn a blind eye.
Is it possible to write about this fictional couple whilst avoiding historical inaccuracies? It doesn't matter if its unlikely, as long as its possible. Below is a more compressed summary of my questions:
Did private medical institutions (of different kinds) exist back the (1900-20's) in Wales or England? Were they profitable? Would it be possible for such a private medical institution to run scams as the ones I listed, and bribe law enforcement to keep their business running?
Hi there - we're happy to approve your question related to your creative project, and we are happy for people to answer. However, we should warn you that many flairs have become reluctant to answer questions for aspiring novelists and the like, based on past experience: some people working on creative projects have a tendency to try to pump historians for trivia while ignoring the bigger points they were making, while others have a tendency to argue with historians when the historical reality does not line up with what's needed for a particular scene or characterization. Please respect the answers of people who have generously given you their time, even if it's not always what you want to hear.
Additionally, as amazing as our flair panel is, we should also point out that /r/AskHistorians is not a professional historical consultation service. If you're asking a question here because you need vital research for a future commercial product such as a historical novel, you may be better off engaging a historical consultant at a fair hourly rate to answer these questions for you. We don't know what the going rate for consultancy work would be in your locality, but it may be worth looking into that if you have in-depth or highly plot-reliant questions for this project. Some /r/AskHistorians flairs could be receptive to working as a consultant in this way. However, if you wish for a flair here to do this work for you, you will need to organize this with them yourselves.
For more general advice about doing research to inform a creative project, please check out our Monday Methods post on the subject.