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AFTER CARE FACILITIES.
The Council operates a free milk and extra nourishment scheme for chest cripples.
Persons in need are recommended for this service by the Medical Social Workers of
the chest clinics serving the Borough. Persons in receipt of supplementary benefit from
the Department of Health and Social Security are automatically eligible, others are
assessed according to income to ascertain their eligibility. Persons whose income does
not allow them to come within the Council's scheme may, if appropriate, be referred
to the Richmond upon Thames Chest and Tuberculosis Care Committee.

(Figures in brackets show comparable figures for 1971).
The Richmond upon Thames Chest and Tuberculosis Care Committee also continued
to undertake after care of chest cripples for the whole Borough.
I am indebted to Mrs. M. Jolliffe, Chairman, and her colleagues for the following
report on the progress of the Organisation during the year.
'Our Committee has been benefiting from two favourable trends during 1972.
Firstly our income has been greater, partly due to a greater response to the Christmas
Seals Sale appeal and partly to a grant from the Richmond Parish Charity Lands.
Secondly — almost the more important — we are feeling the impact of the steady
development of the Borough's Social Services Department in that more patients who
need our help are coming to our notice.
Financially the Seals Sale appeal brought in over £400, a figure that has not
been reached since 1967, although the cost of the appeal continues to rise each year.
The Richmond Parish Charity Lands' grant of £50 a year, although very useful,
cannot be spent freely as recipients must be resident in the old parish. Unfortunately
— or perhaps fortunately — there are few patients known to us who live there.
From the welfare point of view there is no doubt that our new closer liaison
with the Social Services Department at Rosslyn Road and with the Church Road
Clinic, Teddington, are bringing chest patients to our notice whose existence would
otherwise be unknown to us. It is to be hoped that this happy relationship will grow,
enabling us to use our resources to the full for the benefit of new patients as well as
the old.
It may seem strange, almost extravagant, that we give grants for somewhat
unusual items such as TV licences, school uniform, electric blankets, hospital cotton
blankets, etc., but it is just these items that enable patients with a particular medical
background or living in grim circumstances to receive help over and above that given
by the authorities, national or local.'
CARE OF THE ELDERLY
Older People's Clinics
The clinics for older people continued to be well attended. Unfortunately the many
requests for appointments at the clinics have resulted in long waiting lists which cannot
be resolved without increase in staff.
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