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Applicants not offered a holiday:—
Removed from borough 6
Died 13
Single rooms not available 9
Dates required not available 1
Applicant not fit 2
Priority not reached 75
Application withdrawn 4
Of the 597 guests accommodated, 166 were having their first
holiday at the Home. At Christmas a further sixteen guests were
selected from seventy applicants and spent a week at the Home.
The number of applications received each year has become
fairly stable, at about 950, and the Home can accommodate approximately
600 guests a year (the number varies slightly from year to
year depending upon how long the Home must be closed for redecoration
and repairs). Many of the first six hundred offers of
holidays are of course not accepted, for a variety of reasons, and
the vacancies created are then offered to other applicants, and so on
until the Home is filled. Administratively this is complicated by
late applications from high priority guests (i.e. those who have never
been to the Home before) and sudden cancellations.
The priority system used in the allocation of holidays is based
on the number and dates of previous visits, and this gives newcomers
the highest priority. The question is frequently asked " What arc
my chances of a holiday this year? " Although there may be
individual cases which do not conform, the pattern which has
emerged over the last few years, and is fairly consistent, is as follows
(a) All new applicants can be accommodated in their first year
(if a late application is made it might not of course be
possible to offer a date agreeable to the applicant).
(b) An applicant who applies for a holiday and has not been
in the previous year would almost certainly be offered a
visit between May and September but probably not in
mid-summer.
(c) An applicant who had only one previous visit (that visit
being in the previous year) would probably be accommodated
if he or she were prepared to go in the spring or autumn.
This is the lowest priority in the " one previous visit " group.
(d) Applicants with a lower priority than those above would be
offered a winter holiday. January is of course the most
unpopular month but in order to have a break every year
a few "regulars" are prepared to go although the Home
cannot always be filled completely then, or in November.
MEALS SERVICE.—One of the social services which has developed
greatly since the war is the provision of hot mid-day meals for elderly
or infirm persons. Apart from the obvious value to those who are
housebound, old people living alone also benefit because there is a
natural tendency, if they have inconvenient cooking facilities or
none at all, for them to neglect themselves and live on " tea and
toast." A hot meal on even a few days a week means the difference
between an adequate diet and undernourishment.