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OFFICE STAFF
Our thanks are due to the Organising Secretary and her Assistant not only for the really hard
work which they have put in but also for their friendliness and patience towards the many old
people whom they meet. Both Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Wheals have given freely of their leisure in
performing such varied and unconvenanted tasks as catering, taking down and hanging curtains and
general spring cleaning, in which activities they have on occasion been ably abetted by their
respective husbands.
CONCLUSION
It is suggested sometimes that under the Welfare State the scope for voluntary work has become
much restricted, even if the need for it exists at all. Experience contradicts this view. The State
may provide a basis of security but it cannot give help in every contingency nor can it always dispel
fear and anxiety. And for many old people there is still ample cause for both. It should be remembered
that material standards are continually rising. Today's luxuries will be tomorrow's necessities.
To define what is a reasonable standard of living is not easy, but it should be something more than
just keeping going. The State does now provide a great deal and fortunately the various public
welfare services are administered by trained and sympathetic people with a high sense of duty. But
the need for voluntary service will always exist. We would all be poorer without it."
CHIROPODY SERVICE FOR O.A.P's.
Dr. J.L Patton, M,B., Ch.B., D.P.H., Medical Officer of Health to the Borough of Hendon,
gave the following summary of the work of the Chsropody Service since its inception.
For 13 years the British Red Cross has maintained a chiropody service for old people at their
Headquarters in Hendon. In addition, the British Red Cross have also made arrangements for cases
to be treated at Edgware General Hospital on the recommendation of a hospital speci aljst.
Three years ago the National Corporation for the Care of Old People were good enough to
promise the Borough of Hendon Old People's Welfare Committee a grant of £60 a year for three
years towards the cost of a chiropody service. The Committee were fortunate to have the benefit
of Mrs. Marsh's experience of the working of the British Red Cross Society's chiropody service,
and decided to give a more widespread service to more old people in the Borough.
Chiropodists in private practice in Hendon are registered by the Hendon Borough Council
under the Middlesex County Council Act, and registration is limited to chiropodists who at e e ther
members of the Society of Chiropodists or the Institute of Chriopodists, or who were m practice
before the Byelaws and Regulations were made. There are 24 chiropodists serving a population of
153,000,9 of whom are Fellows, Members or Associates of the Society of Chiropodists. All the
chiropodists were invited to attend a meeting in May, 1957, to discuss the possibility of setting up
a service for old people. In order to save long journeys by the patients, it was decided that
arrangements should be made for treatment to be carried out at the chiropodists' own surgeries,
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