[Report 1955] / Medical Officer of Health, Leicester Borough.

  • Leicester (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1955
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1955] / Medical Officer of Health, Leicester Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    119/220 (page 109)
    DOMESTIC HELP (Mrs. P. E. STEED, Organiser) Home Help Service Development of the Service, 1955 In the year under review, as in the two preceding years, we have to consider the development of the Home Help Service in terms of quality rather than quantity ; for the same financial stringencies prevented the full expansion of the service in numbers of staff employed and caused us to relate the quantitative problem of balancing unlimited demand with limited supply to improvements in the quality of service offered. It is interesting to record that in spite of these financial limitations on recruitment and in a city which offers much well-paid employment for women there is still a steady flow of suitable applicants to join the Home Help Service, while within the service figures of turnover and loss of time through sickness tend to decrease. This may suggest that the old prejudices against paid domestic work can be overcome if a social work element is introduced and that the more intelligent worker, who is attracted by this element, acquires with experience a disciplined and responsible attitude towards her service to the community. At the beginning of the year, knowing that the resources of staff would again have to be stretched, we took stock of our methods of organising their work. The service had been decentralised some years ago into five branches with the object of covering, on a district basis with the least possible delay, the short-term emergencies which then formed the bulk of the demand. Over the years our clients needing long-term help, old people, the chronic sick, families where the mother is incapacitated for a considerable time, have tended to increase in number and now form a majority. It was found on investigation that these clients made little use of branch offices for personal calls and could best be served by giving the responsibility for the care of each to one home help or one group of home helps working as a team, without fear of withdrawal. This work, with the emergency element removed, might well be planned centrally. A survey of initial inquiries for emergency help revealed that except in the outlying western area these were usually made to the headquarters of the service, now in more commodious premises at 138 Regent Road. It was therefore decided to close three branch offices and concentrate the work of the services on two offices, the headquarters and the western district office in Kirby Road.