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 1957
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for London County Council]
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HOME HELP SERVICE Statistics of the service given follow:
| 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cases assisted | 34,785 | 34,557 | 35,737 |
| Applications deferred or refused because home helps were not available | 61 | 76 | 25 |
| Hours worked | 4,660,600 | 4,779,600 4,896,000 | |
| Home helps employed at end of year | 3,148 | 3,326 | 3,388 |
| Equivalent of whole-time staff | 2,029 | 2,089 | 2,116 |
| Night helps for chronic sick patients*— | |||
| Applications met | 48 | 37 | 44 |
| No. of new families assisted*— | |||
| Child help (resident) | 5(1( | >) 5(20) | 4(20) |
| Early morning and evening help | 205 | 180 | 153 |
* These are included in total cases assisted. Figures in brackets denote numbers of children involved.
The pattern of cases assisted remained constant, four-fifths were aged and chronic
sick.
During the first year's working of the scheme for providing trained home helps to
teach the rudiments of housecraft to mothers of families in danger of break-up (from
1 May, 1956 to 30 April, 1957), 89 home helps were trained, 71 remained available for
the special duties on 30 April and 58 had undertaken assignments under the scheme.
86 families (involving 368 children) were provided with the special service. Failure was
reported in 10 instances only; in the remainder varying degrees of improvement were
noted, ranging from 'marked improvement' to 'slow progress'. The scheme is now
an integral part of the home help service, and while it is still too early to produce
evidence of lasting success, experience to date is encouraging.
Specially
trained
home helps
63