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HOME HELP SERVICE
Under Section 29 of the National Health Service Act, 1946, the Council provide
a service to give domestic help in homes where it is needed by reason of sickness, confinement,
or old age. Acharge is made of 4s. 3d. per hour, which is abated in case of necessity.
The greatest demand for the service is from old people who are unable to carry
out their day-to-day domestic work without help. Seventy-one per cent. of the households
assisted during the year were those of old persons. Another eight per cent. of households
assisted were those of the chronic sick.
An important aspect of the home help service is the assistance given in homes
where a confinement has taken place orwhere a mother has returned to herown home shortly
after delivery in hospital. Home helps are also provided in cases of toxaemia of pregnancy.
This is a fairly common cause of maternal morbidity and foetal mortality and it is an essential
part of the treatment that the mother should have complete rest. This can only be achieved
in the patient's own home if she is relieved of all her domestic duties and a free home help
is therefore provided on the recommendation of the obstetrician or doctor in attendance.
Details of the home help work carried out during 1965 are given below:-
Number of households assisted 1,823
Number of new applications received 853

The service, the day-to-day running of which a Home Help Organiser has been
responsible throughout the borough, has continued to be based in two offices - one in the
north, the other in the south of the borough. There has continued to be greater demands
for service than the available staff of home helps could meet in full and, as has been the case
in the past, the careful sifting of the cases requiring service to determine those of greatest
need and to apportion the available staff so as best to meet this need, has been the most
important duty undertaken by the organising staff.
CHIROPODY
The Council's chiropody service in the borough is based on the foot clinic at
No. 240 Ladbroke Grove, W.10., providing forty-four chiropodist sessions a week. In
addition, three sessions a week are held at Westbourne Grove Foot Clinic, 304 Westbourne
Grove, W. 11.
The establishment provides for a chief chiropodist, Grade I, a senior chiropodist
and up to three chiropodists on the basic grade. Only one full-time senior chiropodist was
transferred to the Council's service from the former London County Council and the sessions
were mainly staffed on a part-time sessional basis. Arrangements were made before the end of
the year for the appointment of a senior chiropodist. Notwithstanding these efforts, some
nine sessions remained unstaffed in each week and it was not possible to call some patients
for treatment as frequently as was clinically desirable. Priority classes are laid down in the