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The centre's aim is to rehabilitate patients and help them back to work and a normal way of life.
An extremely tolerant atmosphere prevails, but certain standards of behaviour are expected. Most
activities are shared so that patients re-learn to work with others and are drawn out of their desperate
isolation. Help and guidance in every aspect of day-to-day living is available and as part of their
training patients do the daily chores of the centre. There is a first-rate kitchen and patients and
staff together shop, cook and serve a full midday meal. Catering for the centre Christmas Party
was entirely in the hands of the patients and staff and was of an extremely high standard. A
washing machine has been installed and encouragement is given to patients to bring their personal
laundry since those who live in lodgings are often unable to do their washing and cannot afford
launderette facilities. The opportunity offered by the centre may be the first step towards a reawakening
of self-respect and a renewed interest in personal hygiene and appearance.
Among its activities the centre undertakes industrial work, such as simple assembly jobs,
envelope addressing, etc. Doing work of this kind is a necessary part of rehabilitation as patients
once again learn to perform tasks regularly and with concentration, and to accept obligations
of completing to time any work undertaken. If any interested citizen could offer work of this
kind he would be making a very real contribution to the rehabilitation of his sick neighbours and
can be assured that the work performed will be of an acceptable commercial standard.
The Terrace Day Centre is already making a great contribution to the City Council's work and is
helping not only the patients but the City's field staff, and expansion in its activities can be confidently
expected.
The second establishment opened during 1966 within the City's boundaries was of quite a
different kind. It is Linnet House, a special care unit for severely handicapped children over the
age of five years. A special care unit provides daily care for children whose disabilities are so great
that they cannot attend a training centre; some are so helpless physically that they need to be
cared for like infants, some so overactive that they cannot be allowed to move from room to room
unless held firmly by the hand. Only those who have looked after such children can understand
the strain that their constant care can impose on their devoted families. The Health Committee
regarded the easing of this burden as a most urgent task.
Part of the premises of a maternal and child welfare centre were adapted as rapidly as possible,
and a specially designed coach was purchased. Once again the sharing by the local authority
and its voluntary organisations of the task of helping its handicapped citizens is admirably
demonstrated. The City of Westminster Society for Mentally Handicapped children has undertaken
the day-to-day running of the centre on an agency basis. The closest and friendliest co-operation
between the City Council and the Society exists. The staff of the unit are giving devoted service
and already some children have made progress that was not anticipated. At the formal opening
by the Bishop of Willedsen, and at which the Lord Mayor of Westminster was present, the value
of the centre was most forcibly and touchingly demonstrated when "the platform ladies" received
from the children themselves a flower buttonhole. The hours of patient training that enabled these
children to perform this simple task is difficult to realise and could only have been given by staff
whose devotion goes far beyond the demands of duty.
The opening of the establishments described above is only regarded as a beginning. The planned
hostel for subnormal men will open early in 1967 and is an eagerly anticipated development for that
year. Other projects are already under consideration and it is hoped that the difficulty of finding
accommodation within the City and suitable staff will be overcome to enable them to be implemented.
Mental Health Act, 1959—Admission to Psychiatric Hospitals
It is the duty of medical practitioners to secure the admission to hospital of patients needing
treatment under the Mental Health Act, 1959, and of the Regional Hospital Boards to find beds for
such patients. In practice the majority of London borough councils make the services of their
mental health staff available for arranging admissions where general practitioners are not able to do
so. In the first few months of 1966 there was an acute shortage of beds and the Medical Officer
of Health expressed concern at the time-consuming difficulties encountered by his staff in helping
medical practitioners in this way. Apart from the fact that urgent treatment is generally needed,
these serious inroads into the time of the mental health staff restrict their availability for the Council's
statutory services.
In their Memorandum of Guidance on the administration of the Act, issued in 1960, the Ministry
of Health suggested that it might be found convenient for the Hospital Boards to set up a bed
bureau to discharge their responsibility to these patients. Such an organisation has been in
in operation for urgent cases, other than mental health cases, since 1938 (the Emergency Bed
Service) and in July 1966 the City Council made representations to the London Boroughs
Association that a similar organisation should be established for mental health cases.
In October, 1966 the view was expressed to the London Boroughs Association that for these
cases it was preferable to secure admission to the psychiatric hospitals through local channels in