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Further progress has been made in encouraging able-bodied patients to attend
the Centre for routine treatments, but owing to the cost of transport this is largely
limited to the Canning Town area.
Loan Scheme. The scheme for the loan of nursing equipment has been increasingly
used and has proved of great assistance in improving the oare of sick persons nursed in
their own homes.
Future of the Service. There has been no improvement in the recruitment of
trained staff for full-time employment. The part-time staff are the mainstay of the
service and we have been fortunate in retaining many of the present staff for over 5
years. Most of these are married women and some of them (who have older children) are
now able to work additional hours« This has been a considerable helf> to the service and
enabled all requests for nursing care to be met. Any extension to cover a later evening
service, although desirable, cannot be contemplated until an appreciable increase in
full-time staff is achieved.
This continued shortage of whole-time nursing staff is a serious national problem.
The limited number of staff who qualify each year tend to remain in the hospital service.
The very nature of the home nursing duties in districts such as West Ham, requires a
special vocational attitude to the job and does not appeal to many newly qualified nurses.
The answer to the problem may lie in the employment of some less qualified personnel who,
though not having had previous nursing training, could be trained to carry out the simpler
nursing procedures, such as blanket bathing patients who are not acutely ill and who do
not need expert nursing care. Suitable training could be obtained by attendance at a
basic course, supplemented by practical work under the guidance of experienced home nurses.
Such trained staff would provide a means by which qualified nurses, who are in short supply,
could be released from routine work to give more time to nursing the more seriously ill
patients. The number of persons suitable for this work will also be limited, and the
conditions of their employment will have to be made really attractive in order to compete
with the claims of local industry.
It is hoped that a laundry service for the incontinent sick and aged will materialise
in the near future. The service will be of great help, not only to the old people themselves,
but also to the home nurses who find it discouraging to have to nurse without an adequate
supply of clean linen.
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