From the very first the Committee spared neither trouble nor money to provide for the comfort and welfare of the patients. At first the work of visitation and entertainment was organized under Lady (Lionel) Phillips, but later it was taken over by the Red Cross sub-committee of the Fund. For those sufficiently convalescent to enjoy them, every possible variety of amusement was provided. On four or five nights a week some form of entertainment was given in the large concert hall, while every week theatres or places of interest were visited, a special feature being the river trips arranged by the “African World” War Comforts Service, who also very generously provided gifts of fruit and other comforts. Further, in order that nothing should be left undone, Lady Phillips founded a riverside club in close proximity to the hospital, for the benefit of those patients sufficiently convalescent to enjoy the delights of its garden and picturesque river views. Arrangements for bedside occupational work were, in the early days of the hospital, made by lady visitors. Material for fancy work and needlework was generously provided, and the making of regimental crests and other work of a like nature helped patients to pass in bed many a weary hour when they were still too weak to be doing the more serious vocational work. Shortly after the hospital was opened the problem of dealing with the permanently disabled men of the Contingent had to be faced. After negotiations with the War Office, it was arranged that a Vocational Training School should be established in connection with the hospital. A commencement was made in November 1916, and the school was finally opened in February 1917. The scheme involved awakening the men while still in bed to interest in their future, so that when well enough they might go to the classrooms and undertake extensive courses of training. The South African Military Hospital was the first primary hospital in the United Kingdom in which permanently disabled men, while being restored to the best possible physical condition, were trained, with due regard to their disabilities, for a civil career to enable them on discharge from the army to become self-supporting members of the community. There was what was perhaps a natural reluctance on the part of the Home Government in giving sanction to this new venture, which was for many months looked upon as being at the best an interesting experiment. The New Zealand authorities, however, quickly saw the advantages of the methods, and in August 1917 a similar scheme for their hospitals was adopted. The desirability of training permanently disabled soldiers while still undergoing hospital treatment was finally endorsed at the Inter-Allied Conference on Disablement Problems, held in London in May 1918, and committees were subsequently formed in each Command to organize similar work throughout the hospitals of the United Kingdom.