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38
SECTION 4
OLD PEOPLES WELFARE
In recent years the problem of caring for the growing
number of old people has become of increasing importance.
The Ealing Borough Council has, I consider, in its endeavour
to meet this problem, set as high a standard as any
in the country. It has been anxious at all times to use
its statutory powers to the full, both in providing
services directly and by contributing to voluntary organisations
in the Borough. Ealing too is fortunate in the
response it has always had from its voluntary organisations
to requests for help. As work for old people is becoming
of greater significance, I have decided that a section of
my Annual Report shall be devoted to an account of the
Care of Old People in the Borough.
In addition to the services provided locally, those
administered by the Middlesex County Council have been
included. I look forward to the time when the Borough
Council will be able to incorporate these in a comprehensive
and truly local service for old people.
I have long held the opinion that in a Borough of the
size of Ealing the proper provider of such a service is
the Borough Council. In my capacity as Joint Area Medical
Officer for the part of Middlesex which includes Ealing I
have endeavoured to link such services as the Home Help
Service, Home Nursing, Health Visiting and Chiropody to
those directly under my jurisdiction as Medical Officer
of Health. An account of these will be given elsewhere in
the Report but it is convenient here to emphasise how a
great percentage of their work is now concerned with old
people. 75% of those helped by the Home Help Service were
old people and nearly 60% of those attended by the Home
Nursing Service were over 65 years of age, whilst chiropody
provided under the National Health Service Act is almost
entirely for old people. The Health Visitors too have
been redeployed to assist with the care of old people and
have some 500 in Ealing under their surveillance. Cooperation
between the Health Visitors and the Borough's
Public Health Inspectors is close and forms a most useful
combination.
The Royal Commission on Local Government recommended
that all these services should be unified under the
Borough Councils and that to these should be added the
function of the Welfare Department with its residential