London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
London County Council 1955
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for London County Council]
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DOMESTIC HELP SERVICE
the domestic help service (provided under Section 29 of the National Health
Service Act, 1946, to those requiring it because of the presence of any person who is ill,
lying-in, an expectant mother, mentally defective, aged, or a child under school age)
has continued to grow.
The following figures illustrate the extent or the increase over the last three years :
| 1953 | 1954 | 1955 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cases assisted | 30,335 | 32,503 | 34,785 | |
| Hours worked | 4,269,408 | 4,601,168 | 4,660,600 | |
| Home helps employed at end of year | 2,996 | 3,124 | 3,148 | |
| Equivalent of whole-time staff | 1,866 | 1,992 | 2,029 | |
The consistent pattern of cases assisted is shown by the percentage figures for the last three years :
| 1953 Per cent. | 1954 Per cent. | 1955 Per cent. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aged and chronic sick | 75 | 77 | 80 |
| Maternity | 6 | 5 | 4 |
| Tuberculous | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| Other reasons | 15 | 14 | 13 |
The continuing high proportion of aged and chronic sick requiring service is in
itself an outstanding commentary on the need for such a service for those old and sick
persons and, with a growing proportion of aged people in the community, it seems
inevitable that the demand will increase.
The policy has continued that some service should be supplied to all in need and
this year only 61 applications had to be deferred or refused owing to inability to supply,
as compared with 161 in 1954.
Night helps
Night helps are provided to sit with chronic sick patients in their own homes to
enable the relatives to get one or two nights' sleep a week. Night helps attend from
11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and carry out duties, other than nursing, which would normally be
undertaken by the patient's family. The demand for this service was not heavy during
the year, 48 new applications having been met.
Child helps
The health services continued to be used wherever possible during the year to
prevent children from being received into care.
The child help scheme, originally experimental, is now an integral part of the
domestic help service, and has been extended so that help can be given where only
one child is concerned (formerly there had to be at least two children needing care).
Under the scheme resident help can be provided in the children's own homes to look
after children temporarily deprived of the care of both parents (e.g. where the mother
is in hospital and the father does night-work) and having no other adult staying in the
home at night. In exceptional circumstances, and where paid employment has been
given up for the purpose of undertaking the work, relatives of children to be cared for
may be employed as child helps for those children. In other appropriate cases, neighbours
or friends nominated by the parents may be employed for specific assignments. The
employment of relatives and friends or neighbours is subject to the Council's normal
conditions of service for child helps. During the first experimental year of the service
ending November, 1954, 12 families (34 children) were helped. Contrary to expectations
the demand in 1955 fell, and child helps were provided for only 5 families (16 children).
Early
morning and
evening help
Where children had to be cared for during the day-time only, specially suitable
home helps were supplied and the hours of duty were arranged to fit in with parents'
hours of work and day nursery and school hours. Help was supplied for the care of
children outside normal working hours, i.e. between 7 and 9 a.m. and 5 and 7 p.m. to
205 new families in 1955, as compared with 85 families in 1954.
83