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Home Nursing - Section 25
The primary function of the service is that of
nursing the sick and the handicapped in their
own homes thereby supporting the family in
time of stress and economising on the time of
family doctors
The service is being used increasingly in
relation to the early discharge from hospital
of patients who were admitted during the
acute stage of an illness and or for diagnostic
purposes The advantages gained by the
shorter occupation of hospital beds are too
obvious to require detailed comment Of
necessity, however home nursing is one of
the council s services that is still expanding
both to meet the needs arising from hospital
policy and from the number of the increasingly
aged in the population who without home
nursing may require admission to geriatric
wards Visits made during 1968 totalled 91 818
to 2 762 patients and of these 1 832 were aged
65 years or over Many of these patients were
in the 80 90 age group and if ambulant at all
were feeble and slow and therefore tended to
take up much of the nurses time Indeed the
largest number of patients in our nurses care
are elderly and often incontinent Disposable
items of equipment and the use of incontinence
pads and protective garments for mobile
incontinent patients have proved invaluable
and the only means of lightening the load both
on nurses and relatives of the sick and elderly
Laundry service
Incontinent patients who are infirm or who lack
adequate washing facilities and cannot afford
to pay laundry charges are provided with a
free laundry service under Section 84 of the
Public Health Act 1936 One local laundry
has continued the service for these patients
and during the year 31 cases were assisted in
this way after certificates had been issued as
required by the Act Sheets were also loaned
free of charge to a few necessitous cases
Staff
The staff was increased during the year by the
equivalent of one and a half whole time state
enrolled nurses who work in and under the
supervision of experienced district trained
state registered nurses and are making a
30
valuable contribution to the service A general
practitioner home nurse liaison scheme was
instituted in June 1968 In essence this means
that any of the doctor s patients needing home
nursing are visited by the same nurse This
scheme is expanding but as the number of family
doctors exceeds the number of home nurses it
follows that the work of one nurse cannot be confined
to the patients of one general practitioner
but has to be shared by several doctors Home
nurses also undertake injections and other treat
ments in health centres or in the surgeries of the
doctors to whom they are attached
The Marie Curie day and night nursing service
continues to provide an essential service and
was much appreciated by 25 patients and their
relatives
Training
Four nurses completed a course of district nurse
training successfully and a further nurse is
continuing such a course which commenced in
September Various day release courses and other
study days were attended by other members of the
staff who expressed their appreciation of the
opportunities afforded them of extending their
knowledge by this means
Five students from the Middlesex Hospital
Hounslow Hospital and West Middlesex Hospital
came to the borough at six week intervals and
accompanied home nurses on their visits as part
of their training In addition two students undertaking
the new integrated course of nursing
worked for one month alongside home nurses on
their district as part of their training Both students
were successful in their district nursing examina
tion
Home Help Service Section 29
The home help service continues to grow steadily
and although it was designed originally to deal
with temporary domestic crises the emphasis is
now largely placed on the infirm and chronic sick
Whereas formerly help might have been required
for two or three weeks to cover a domestic
emergency continuous care of the infirm is now
much more evident
Despite the continuation of a comprehensive
training scheme it is not easy to find suitable
staff who are prepared to work often in unhygienic
homes tackle problem families and assist elderly
persons who need understanding and tact to over