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115
SECTION V
WELFARE SERVICES
Residential
Before discussing in detail the statutory obligations of the
Council in the provision of residential accommodation and our
methods of assessment and selection, it may be helpful to indicate
the basic thinking of the Department and to describe our aims.
Local citizens are admitted to residential accommodation
because there has been a breakdown or an inadequacy of one
sort or another, either material or psychological. The reasons
for this breakdown may be medical or social. On the social side,
the whole range of supportive services in the Department can
be and are being brought into action rapidly and on the medical
side the family doctor or the geriatric adviser is consulted on
therapy and further action. The geriatric advisory clinics are
becoming increasingly important in this connection. As far as
possible, people should be encouraged to remain in their own
homes leading an independent life, and when applications are
received for admission to residential homes great efforts are made
to keep old people with their families or in familiar surroundings.
However comfortable residential accommodation is made, it is
never home in the true sense, and change is disruptive and can
have damaging effects on the elderly. It is for these sound reasons
that each applicant is examined carefully and all the circumstances
explored in an endeavour to meet individual needs in the way
best suited to the particular case. By means of this approach
many elderly people can remain quite happily at home in their
declining years, and admission to hospital or to residential accommodation
should be considered as a final expedient or because no
other action is possible. These means can only be successful
if each member of the team recognizes the contribution which
their professional colleagues, either within or outside the Department,
can make. Already the efforts being made in this direction
are showing results, and a great deal of remediable social and
medical malaise is being relieved by the co-operative efforts of
the various officers in the Department who have knowledge and
a contribution to make.
National Assistance Act, 1948—Part III.
Provision of Accommodation
This Act placed a duty upon local authorities to provide :—
(a) Residential accommodation for persons who by reason
of age, infirmity or any other circumstances are in need
of care and attention which is not otherwise available to
them.