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of the Foundation by Medical Officers of Health and Nursing Superintendents, who in
practice act as agents of the Foundation.
As an extension of the Area Welfare Grant Scheme and to combat the difficulty
of finding nurses when required, the Foundation has introduced a Day and Night
Nursing Service which is designed to facilitate the provision of nursing assistance and
a "sitters-in" Service for cancer patients. The main provisions of the Service are that the
Foundation recruits nurses or women with nursing experience and payments are made
to them by the Council out of funds provided by the Foundation. The nurses are not
in the employ of the Council, although they are supervised by their Medical Officers
and Nursing Superintendent for the day-to-day working arrangements. All expenditure
incurred under the scheme is met by the Marie Curie Memorial Foundation.
HEALTH VISITING
Staff
1 Chief Nursing Officer.
1 Superintendent Health Visitor.
21 Health Visitors.
2 (1.0)* Part'time Health Visitors.
9 (3.5)* Part-time Clinic Nurses.
1 Health Assistant.
1 Tuberculosis Health Visitor.
1 Student Health Visitor.
* equivalent whole time.
It has not been possible to initiate any major new aspects of health visiting during
the year.
It is hoped that two more health visitors will shortly be attending weekly infant
welfare sessions in the surgeries of family doctors, making three in all, and a clinic
nurse will attend once a fortnight at an ante-natal clinic in another surgery.
Two clinic nurses go weekly to a clinic for older people in the surgery of another
group of family doctors.
In a borough where the number of people over 65 years is high, consideration
will have to be given to development of health visiting in this age group (see page 32—
Care of the Elderly). A senior member of the health visitor team, possibly of group
adviser grade, is needed to organise a comprehensive service for the elderly with
probably one or two health visitors concentrating on the special problems in this age
group. Health visitors with a case load of families with young children find it difficult
to give sufficient time to older people, although fresh orientation in this field is worthy
of further study.
There is one small project in operation assocated with the Teddington Clinic
for Preventive Medicine for Older People (see page 32), where consecutive groups of
eight to ten people attend a series of weekly talks lasting six weeks and given by a
health visitor on such topics as nutrition, how to eat well on a small income and other
economies, care of the feet, value of physical activity, how to adjust to irreversable
disability, the importance of cultural interests and social contact, and the services available
to help in times of difficulty. A physiotherapist also attends these sessions.
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