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at home, the scheme was extended to provide help in a much wider range
of circumstances. The arrangement under the National Health Service
Act is intended essentially as an emergency service by which help is sent in
to a household faced with some emergency, often enough the result of
the mother herself succumbing to some illness. In practice though this
service has gradually become one of providing help to the aged and those
suffering from some long-standing illness. The help which can be given
to these people is of the greatest assistance, as even moderate help enables
some of them to continue to live at home who without that help could not
have managed and would have had to have been admitted to an institution,
either a Part III welfare accommodation or even a hospital.
Many people, especially those living alone, either temporarily or
permanently, need help more of a nursing character than can be accepted
as falling within the range of duties of a home help, yet falling very short
of necessitating the skilled help of trained nurses. It would be helpful
if especially proficient and selected home helps could be recognised as being
able to carry out these extended duties and be permitted to, being
appropriately remunerated.
Although at no time has it been possible to recruit sufficient home
helps to meet the full demands, and particularly to give more help at such
times as epidemic illness, the staff engaged are able to meet promptly
most of the requests. Additional staff would enable more help to be given
in certain cases where the present limitation of numbers permits giving
only of a minimum service.
The average number of home helps was one full-time and 54 part-time,
being an equivalent of 33 full-time home helps. They gave assistance in
1,027 households; in 247 of these the patient helped was a maternity
case, in 23 was one suffering from tuberculosis, in 246 was one suffering
from an acute condition and in 511 was a long term case.
GENERAL MEDICAL SERVICES
The number of general medical practitioners whose practice extends
to the Borough of Harrow is learned of from notifications of infectious
diseases or of births. This number of 142 includes some who live outside
the district though visiting homes in this area and in some cases having
surgeries here. According to the return of the Middlesex Executive
Council in March 1959. 127 doctors were taking part in Harrow in the
general medical service under the National Health Service Act. 88 of
these also take part in the maternity services provided under the Act.
An indication of the sufficiency or otherwise of the number of general
medical practitioners practising in the area is obtained from the decision
of the Medical Practices Committee. They class as "restricted" an area
in which they feel the number of doctors is adequate, as "designated" an
area where there is a smaller proportion, and as "intermediate" an area
to which admission is decided in the light of medical man-power or
other circumstances Prevailing at time of application. In the middle
of 1956, although most of the area was classed as intermediate, one small
Part was classed as restricted and another as designated. The position on
the 1st January, 1959 was that the whole of Harrow was classed as an
intermediate area.