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receive what treatment they needed for their feet. Some favoured a scheme
as part of the National Health Services, others one provided by local
authorities. The resistance to the introduction of such arrangements
was apparently based partly on the cost of running a service, partly on
the shortage of chiropodists, especially in certains parts of the country.
During the year, however, the Government authorised local health
authorities making such arrangements, concentrating in the early stages
on certain priority classes which include the elderly.
Laundry. For some years the Harrow Council has used its very
restr eted powers under Section 84 of the Public Health Act which enables
authorities to arrange for articles to be cleansed in certain circumstances.
The Hendon Group Hospital Management Committee agreed to arrange
for the actual work of treating the articles of clothing and bedding to be
done if the District Council would meet the cost. When the scheme was
first started, the Hospital Management Committee charged 4½d. an article.
In view of the increase in wages and the cost of materials, the charge was
raised as from 1st April, 1959, to 5¾d. per article. At the beginning of
last year, nine persons were being helped. During the year there were
requests to help a further 16 cases. Because of death or removal from
the district, the number provided with help at the end of the year was
eleven.
A number of local launderettes operate a special service to old age
pensioners at reduced charges. In addition to the Belmont and Harrow
Weald launderettes which previously helped in this way, assistance can
now be given to those in the Honeypot Lane, Hatch End and Pinner
areas.
Many of the problems of the elderly occur because they have lost
touch with others. It is in providing this companionship that the luncheon
clubs, the Evergreen Clubs, the Darby and Joan clubs and the Oversixty
Clubs are of such inestimable benefit. Even though each of these
has a large membership, in all they can reach only a small proportion of
the elderly of the district and perhaps only a very small proportion of the
lonely elderly. The home visiting scheme provided by the Old Peoples
Welfare Committe reaches others, and is particularly helpful to those who
are largely or perhaps wholly housebound. The home visitors, too,
might establish contact with those who will not for one reason or another
become members of any of the clubs. Of course, very many of the people
who are getting on continue in touch with the various organisations of
which they had all along been members. In the same way the members ot
these organisations themselves in turn keep in touch with those who
previously were members but who no longer attend the meetings. However
energetic these various bodies are and with however many they are
in touch, there are still many of these elderly people who are in touch
with no one and are really not known to anybody, and who become
known to the authority only when some disaster has overtaken them and
urgent measures have to be taken. It is this type of person with whom it
is necessary to get in touch before this stage has been reached in the hope