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that during the year ending 30th June, 1958 397 people had received
treatment, 291 at the clinics and 106 in their own homes.,
A Clinic for the Aged. The clinic which the County Council agreed
should be held as an experiment for preventive medicine was opened at
Twickenham early in the year.
In other districts other activities have been carried out in the interests
of the elderly. Some of these help to keep the mobile and the fit from
moving into the group from which all too easily they can pass to needing
care and attention. Others do much to save those in the second group
from failing socially or medically and so becoming in need of a bed in a
home or hospital.
Amongst the former range of activities is the club, open for long
periods and desirably providing facilities not only for recreation but for
occupation. Some expressly directed to this latter purpose are the
workshops. In connection with the clubs, though not always limited to
those who are members are the arrangements for holidays, day excursions,
visits to the theatre, etc.
For those who are largely confined to their homes are the visits by the
home visitors. In some districts arrangements are made for exhibition of
a card in the window which draws the attention of the passers-by to the
occurrence of some emergency in the home.
Perhaps one of the most important steps to be taken to ensure that
those who are in any way concerned with the problem whether as helpers
or as those to be helped know of what facilities are available.
Another very important step is to discover those who have already
passed into the stage from which they might so easily become in need of
care and attention. Some form of registration has been carried out in
some places. There are many difficulties about the compilation of such a
register. In the first place, sheer age in itself is not a factor of importance
in determining whether or not the person has reached that stage. If a list
were compiled, and in this district according to the 1951 census, there
were 11,751 persons over seventy years of age (7,589 of them women) and
even 6,283 (4,163 women) over seventy-five years of age, having discovered
who these are and where they live, the value of the list on any day is
short-lived as even a mild illness or a fall or perhaps even bad news could
quickly convert that person into one needing care and attention. The
completion of a list of such people with particulars of their nearest
relatives, their closest friends, their doctors, would, of course, be useful
when such persons had passed into the stage of needing care and attention.
It could also ensure that each of these people was linked to some organisation
providing some form of help. In some districts such lists have been
compiled and the information kept up to date by a visit every six months.
Without sending anyone out to discover in each road these people, it is
possible to compile a working list of all those who already are taking
advantage of whatever special facilities for the elderly that there are, and
of those who are in need of various services such as those provided by
home nurses and home helps; but at the moment it is not the responsibility