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6o
HOME HELP SERVICE
The Home Help Service is provided to meet the needs of
people who for various reasons such as home confinement, sickness or
old age, are either temporarily or permanently unable to carry out
housework or need assistance towards such tasks as shopping, cleaning
or washing. The service is provided on the recommendation of the
family doctor and the amount of service is assessed on need by the
home help supervisor, and on availability of home helps. A charge
is made based on the cost of the service, but is reduced according
to the recipient's means, where necessary.
The establishment of the equivalent of 60 full time home
helps has never been reached, and at 31st December 1969 there were
69 home helps, equivalent to 35 full time staff. During the year, 46
home helps left the service and 43 were recruited.
These recruitment difficulties have resulted in heavy
pressure on existing staff which has in some instances proved inadequate
to meet the demands on the service.

The total number of hours devoted to patients by the home help
service was 65,607.
Two in-service training courses for home helps were held during
the year. Each was attended by eleven home helps, and proved both
interesting and successful,, The home helps were given an insight into
the other services available to those they help and were able to
appreciate the relative points of their own service in the general
scheme, in addition to practical advice and demonstrations, aimed at
assisting them in the performance of their own duties.