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CHIROPODY SERVICE
Mr. B. Dalton, M.Ch.S., S.R.Ch., M.R.S.H., Chief Chiropodist
Four clinics, three full-time and one part-time, are maintained by the Council, and
one chief, five full-time and seventeen sessional chiropodists are on the Health
Department staff. There is, at the clinic, an average waiting time of twelve weeks
between appointments. This is regrettably due to continued shortage of chiropodists.
There were 4,517 (4,311) sessions during the year. Full-time staff carried out 2,346
(1,858) of these and part-time staff did 2,171 (2,453). An average of 88 (82) sessions
per week was provided during the year.
1,700 elderly, infirm, or handicapped patients were taken to and from the clinics
by departmental transport, the average appointment interval for this special service
was fifteen weeks. Fourteen domiciliary visits were made to persons of under pensionable
age who were chronically ill and house bound. Simple appliances were made for
thirty-five patients not sufficiently severely afflicted to require orthopedic treatment
or surgical footwear, but who would have required considerably more than routine
chiropody treatment. Twenty special cases were successfully completed, these being
patients where the condition required long and frequent attention to find the best
treatment or combination of methods to resolve the condition. In these cases admission
to hospital was undoubtedly prevented. After some delay, due to nondelivery
of equipment, the session at Lewisham Hospital commenced in September.
Liaison has been maintained throughout the year with the foot clinic provided by
a voluntary agency at the Deptford Central Methodist Mission and has now been
established with the Brook Lane Medical Mission.
The plan approved by the Council for the sponsoring of suitable students wishing
to train as chiropodists has not as yet been implemented but it is hoped to do so in
the coming year. In the long run this will help to stimulate and maintain the standard
of the professional worker employed by the Council and also increase the supply of
chiropodists.
It is estimated that to maintain the present inadequate service and to contain the
elderly population growth, accommodation will be required for sixteen full-time
chiropodists by 1972. By that time eighteen per cent. of the population will require
some chiropodial attention. Improvement of the service is dependent on increasing
the capacity to twelve full-time chiropodists as soon as possible. On this basis the
number should rise to twenty by 1972. This would allow for a reduction in the
appointment interval to an optimum of eight weeks, and the annual rate of growth
to be contained.
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