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7
Housing Committee, and rightly so, as grounds for the rehousing
of the patient or of a second family, especially if it
includes young children, who are occupying the same premises.
It would, perhaps, be more efficacious to remove the source of
infection to suitable hospital or other accommodation.
The care of old people living alone is becoming more
and more the responsibility of the Health Department.
Under Section 47 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, as
amended by the National Assistance (Amendment) Act, 1951
it is the responsibility of the local authority to take appropriate
action in the case of persons "who are suffering from grave
chronic disease or being aged and infirm or physically handicapped
are living in insanitary conditions and are unable to
devote to themselves, and are not receiving from other persons,
proper care and attention." The effects of the ageing of the
population are now being felt in the increase of such cases.
Old people are often discovered to be living in conditions
grotesque from the point of view of loneliness and the absence
of even the lowest standards of comfort, care and cleanliness.
These old people are nearly always infirm to a greater or
lesser extent and I would like to express my appreciation of the
help which is so readily forthcoming from the officers of the
Woolwich Group Hospital Management Committee who do
their best under difficult circumstances to find accommodation
for these urgent cases.
The affiliation of the local Elderly People's Welfare
Committee to the North West Kent Old People's Welfare
Committee operating under the North West Kent Council of
Social Service, has now taken place, and the experiment is
being tried of appointing district liaison officers somewhat on
the lines of the Tuberculosis Care and After-Care Committee.
The work of the new Committee will be, firstly, to ascertain on
a Ward basis the old people needing additional care, to coordinate
the work of all agencies providing for the care of
old people and to afford to the latter a wide range of good
neighbourly services. One of the added functions will be
the raising of funds from various charitable sources and the
assistance of old people, in suitable cases, by small monetary
grants or their equivalent in food and other requirements
needed for their comfort. Although the State is now responsible
for a wide range of statutory services for old people, it
is considered essential that each local community should
interest itself in the deprived old people who are living in
their midst.