[Report 1951] / Medical Officer of Health, Northumberland County Council.

  • Northumberland (England). County Council.
Date:
1951
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1951] / Medical Officer of Health, Northumberland County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ‘29 home to rest so that immediate arrangements could be made to start therapy at home. The service continued to be very popular and 130 patients were given instruction in one or another art or craft. The most popular crafts were lampshade making, em¬ broidery and rug making. Exhibitions of work done by the patients were given in con¬ nection with civic exhibitions in Wallsend during the year. General Illness. Section 28 of the National Health Service Act, 1946, allows the County Council to make arrangements for the after-care of persons who have suffered from illness, and the administration of the County Council's scheme was delegated to the Area Health Sub-Committees. The County is divided into a large number of districts, the majority of which have voluntary care committees which have worked in close conjunction with the general practitioners, the district nurses and the Area Health Sub-Committees. The health visitors or almoners have visited the homes of the sick and, when necessary, have arranged for nursing needs to be met from the stock of equipment held in store at the nurses’ home. They also have ensured that domestic help was obtained where necessary and generally looked after the social welfare of the household. Much more could be achieved in this field of preventive medicine, especially when the sick person is living alone, if the hospital offices would tell the department of all discharged persons who would be likely to need help of any sort. The provision of a holiday after hospital treatment is a form of convalescence which has been expanded and the table on page 90 shows details of the Convalescent Homes to which patients have been sent. A charge was made in all cases where the assessment of the household income exceeded the scale approved by the County Council.