[Report 1954] / Medical Officer of Health, Lancashire County Council.

  • Lancashire (England). County Council.
Date:
1954
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1954] / Medical Officer of Health, Lancashire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    75/178 (page 73)
    No. of home helps employed at 31st December No. of cases for which home help was provided during the year for— Total Part-time Confinements Chronic sick including aged and infirm Illness and others attended per 1,000 popula¬ tion Year Whole time On retaining fee Not on retaining fee Total At home Away from home Tuber¬ culosis Total 1954 7 624 897 1,528 754 199 180 7,523 1,442 10,098 4-9 1953 5 537 699 1,241 967 273 136 4,079 1,726 _> 7,181 3-5 1952 5 493 494 992 941 225 103 4,437 5,706 2-8 1951 6 511 346 863 1,092 318 105 V_ 4,195 _) 5,710 2-8 1950 15 278 565 858 1,468 347 4,072 5,887 2-9 One of the most striking features of the above analysis is the very considerable fall over the past five years in the number of cases where help was required in the case of the mother’s confinement either at home or elsewhere, and this despite increased maternity grants under the National Health Insurance Scheme. At the same time the numbers of cases of chronic sick and aged and infirm have risen quite rapidly. Attendance upon cases.-—Naturally attendance upon cases varies not only with the type of case but also with the availability of home helps, practically all of whom are part-time. The statement below sets out for each category of case, regardless of age, the actual number of hours of attendance given by the home helps during the year, together with average attendance in terms per case. Percentage of total Attendance given during year No. of No. of actual hours Percentage Average number of— Category cases attended cases (all categories) of total hours (all categories) Hours per case Days per case Hours per day per case Days per week per case Weeks per case Confinement— at home 754 7-5 59,771 3-6 79-3 13-5 5-9 4-0 3-3 away from home 199 2-0 14,124 0-9 71-0 15-3 4-6 3-5 4-3 Tuberculosis . 180 1-8 36,704 2-2 203-9 55-8 3-7 31 18-0 Chronic sick 3,502 34-7 759,078 46-3 216-8 67-2 3-2 3-2 21-2 Aged and infirm . 4,021 39-8 594,164 36-3 147-8 45-8 3-2 2-3 20-3 Illness and others 1,442 14-3 174,168 10-6 120-8 33-7 3-6 2-6 12-7 All categories 10,098 100 1,638,009 100 162-2 48-6 3-3 2-7 17-9 It will be seen from the above that the number of hours actually worked by the home helps during the year totalled 1,638,009, which, set against the average number of helps employed during the year, viz. 1,428, produces an average of roughly 22 hours per help each week. Broadly, it may be said that, on the average, each home help case extended over 18 weeks and necessitated slightly more than 162 hours of attendance on just over 48^ days of that period with an average attendance of almost 3| hours on 2-7 days per week. Table 19 on page 163 gives information of a similar kind as regards each health division, together with an indication as to the areas in which the largest demands for home helps had to be met. In com¬ paring details of the attendance given to cases by home helps in the several divisions, regard must, of course, be had to the number of helps employed and the variations in the numbers of types of cases attended by reference to Table 18. As might be expected in view of the fact that the majority of cases is to be found amongst the chronic sick and aged and infirm, the hours devoted to this combined group were well in excess of any other, but it will be seen that although there was a rather higher percentage of aged and infirm cases than chronic sick, the latter category apparently took up more time than the former. Whilst, as stated earlier, the average time devoted to each home help case was 162 hours, the actual working time required by the different categories of cases varied from 71 hours in the case of the care of the family whilst the mother was away from home for confinement to almost 217 hours in connection with the chronic sick. In consider¬ ing the amount of attendance given to the various classes of case regard must, of course, not only be had to the actual hours spent on the case but also to the period of time over which those hours were spread and the number of days per week of that period on which attendance was given. Thus, although six hours per day on four days each week for rather less than three and a half weeks were required in cases where the mother was confined at home, the average chronic sick case only necessitated 3-2 hours on slightly more than three days of each week, but for a period of 21 weeks.