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highly regarded nationally, had the benefit of full council support
and approval and had flourished accordingly. Certainly its
geriatric services were second to none. With a cadre of wellqualified
and skilled "public health officers" it had pioneered incontinent
laundry and bathing facilities and added pedicure and
hair-washing for good measure; its luncheon clubs and meals-onwheels
schemes, introduced early in the 1950's were providing
meals greatly in excess of other local authorities; its organisation
and training of "home helps" was unsurpassed and their cooperation
with geriatric visitors and district nurses led to an
eminently effective and sensitive instrument for service to the
community; its arrangements for chiropody and its provision
for the elderly to spend a vacation at its own "holiday hotel"
were the envy of many authorities. Moreover, the undoubted
success of our "old peoples' clubs" owes much to the stimulation
and unstinted support, encouragement and assistance afforded by
the department since the war. All these and many other functions
were undertaken and extended within the existing legislation.
Notwithstanding all the accompanying publicity it must be
noted that, on close examination, the new Social Services and
Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Acts added little to the
powers already at hand to local authorities under the Public
Health, National Heath Services and National Assistance Acts,
although the resources about to be made available in accordance
with these new Acts would have been "riches beyond avarice" to
the original establishment. It is fair to say that local authorities
not taking advantage of the permissive powers under the previous
legislation are hardly likely to prove paragons in respect of the
new statutes.
In respect of our own integrated Directorate, the nature of
which was unique in local government, it was anticipated that the
net result of the new legislation would be merely to add impetus
to plans already formulated for the expansion and development
of extant services. Eventual division of the Directorate was
therefore seen as an impediment to the previously successful
modus operandi.
It will be recalled that, in 1970, on the subject of the Seebohm
Report, the Central Health Services Council made the
following observation to the then Secretary of State—"the
proposed separation of medical and social work would not only
be administratively disastrous but would be to the great disadvantage
of the patient." In general, perhaps with the exception of the