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It is interesting to note that cases treated were almost all acute illness.
If the home nursing service is no longer concerned to any great extent with paediatric
nursing, this is more than offset by the rise in the demand for home nursing of the elderly.
In 1931 there were 321,000 persons over 65 years of age living in London; by 1961 this
number had increased by 25 per cent, to 401,000. However, prolonged expectation of life
has brought an increasing liability with advancing age to degenerative diseases and
associated deformities. While there was no real evidence that families were less willing to
look after their old people in 1961 than they were thirty years ago, smaller families have
meant fewer young people to look after them and economic opportunity has taken the
young away from home. It is recognised that it is the home nurse, with her colleague the
home help, who has made it possible for many old people, who would otherwise have had
to go into residential homes, to remain much longer in the community. In her daily work
with the elderly sick the home nurse gets the patient up as early as possible, tries to preserve
function however limited this may be and helps the patient to do whatever he is capable of
doing. Comprehensive statutory and voluntary services have been made available throughout
the county for the rehabilitation of the elderly sick, to counteract loneliness and to
bring colour and interest into the patient's life. The home nurse has worked closely with
the health visitor to bring these services to the patient.
In other age groups the home nurse has attended mainly acute illness and has been
especially helpful to the general practitioner in carrying out diagnostic procedures in the
early stages of illness. Nursing visits to the home traditionally have had an educational
value, for the occurrence of illness brings to the relatives a ready receptiveness of the means
of prevention, teaches them to take temperatures and carry out other simple nursing
procedures and to observe the signs of change. Relationships within the family are no less
important and the home nurse may have to use her influence to prevent over-coddling, to
calm the patient who has to be isolated of his fear of loss of affection, or to give relatives
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