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25
Finsbury Employment Scheme for the Elderly
Invalid Kitchens of London
Leysian Mission
St. James' (Pentonville) Lodies Guild
St. James' (Clerkenwell) Women's Fellowship
St. Luke's Parochial Mission
The S.O.S. Society (Angel Hostel)
Toe H Women's Association, Carshalton Branch (St. Clement's
Meal Service)
Women's Voluntary Service
All these voluntary organizations have been engaged in providing
facilities for the aged consisting of employment, mid-day dinner services,
club meetings and outings throughout the year. In some cases
these facilities allow the premises to be used for games, reading,
etc., apart from the times of the actual meetings. In addition
numerous small personal services are provided and housebound persons
visited in their homes.
The British Red Cross Society maintains club rooms open daily at
9, Walmsley Street.
The work of these and other organizations is co-ordinated as far
as possible by the Finsbury Old People's Welfare Committee which consists
of representatives of most of those bodies who are concerned
with the elderly and of which I am privileged to be Honorary Secretary.
It operates, therefore, in close association with the services provided
by the Council, and has received from the latter financial
grants each year.
Apart from the co-ordination of other voluntary bodies it has
under its aegis inaugurated the following services:
Domiciliary Chiropody Service:
The Domiciliary Chiropody Service was inaugurated in 1951 for
those aged persons who are unable by reason of senility, chronic
sickness, etc. to attend personally the Foot Clinic at the Finsbury
Health Centre.
This service has proved well justified, in so far as it has
enabled the aged and infirm to get about at home in reasonable comfort
and do things for themselves, and so retain the independence essential
to their mental and physical well-being.
The domiciliary visits have increased from ninety annually to two
hundred and fifty during the year January-December 1955, During the
past year new cases numbered forty of which six were bedridden and
four blind.