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I would require an entire Annual Report to do
justice to this enormous problem. That is not possible,
although I feel that the Annual Report of the Medical Officer
of Health should contain detailed reference to an aspect of
health which affects a large and growing section of the
community.
Old age comes to many people in many ways. Some
are relatively unaffected, retaining both their mental and
physical powers until an advanced age, and remaining in the
care of relatives or sympathetic friends. Others are
affected by old age at a relatively early period, and may
require medical and nursing care either in the home or in a
hospital or institution. To some elderly patients money is
no object; others are wholly dependent on national assistance.
Some elderly persons prefer to eat out, where they can be
assured of company; others are confined to their houses or to
one room, and welcome the meals provided by the Meals-on-Wheels
Service.
These various examples are given, merely to show the
diverse factors which go to make up the quite gigantic problem
contained within the two words "old age".
No one would be so stupid or so churlish as to deny
that much has been done in Friern Barnet for elderly persons.
Apart from help provided by such statutory bodies as the
Urban District Council, the Middlesex County Council through
the Area Medical Officer, the Area Welfare Officer, and the
National Assistance Board, the help furnished by voluntary
organisations, churches and by charitable individuals, is
too generous and covers much too wide a field to mention in
any detail.
This is all very well, but it is by no means enough.
It has long been obvious that the problem must be studied as
a whole, not as an aggregation of individual units, In this
way and in this way only can we be reasonably certain that
all aspects of the problem are receiving attention, that
energy is not being uselessly expended, that there is no
duplication and re-duplication, that gaps are not being left
unclosed.
The problem of the aged was considered at a meeting
convened by the Chairman of the Council in the Town Hall
on the l6th. December, 1954. The meeting, which was
attended by representatives of a large number of voluntary
organisations, and also by officials, discussed the whole
problem in detail and eventually decided to ask the existing
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