[Report 1956] / Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council.
- Cumberland County Council
- Date:
- 1956
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: [Report 1956] / Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![to keep old people in their own homes as long as possible. Ninety per cent of the people of retirement age were being cared for in their own homes to-day and the Minister hoped that, in the course of time and with improved techniques, the proportion would increase. One of the principal housing priorities now and in the years ahead must be the provision of suitable accommodation for old people and if that policy is to be successful there must be increasing co-operation between the Housing Authority and the Welfare Authority. The Minister said it was clear from the figures submitted to him that an increasing number of old people would have to be accommodated in resi- dential homes. Since the war local authorities had provided 850 new homes for old people and voluntary bodies had provided 600. [N.B. Hereon it may be stated that this impor- tant principle of encouraging old people to continue to reside in their own homes for as long as possible, has over the past 9 years, been repeatedly stressed to the Cumberland Old Peoples’ Welfare Commit- tee (a Voluntary Organisation) and to Housing Authorities as being of vital importance not only to, and in the interests of the old people themselves but to the County Council’s Welfare Services in general. In addition, the County Council approved of the establishment of a short-stay home at The Towers, Skinburness—now in course of adaption for the pur- pose—where aged persons in need of care and atten- tion and normally cared for by relatives, can be accommodated for three or four weeks whilst the relatives are given a little respite from the many try- ing conditions which often prevail, and thereby avoid applications which might otherwise be made for admission permanently to Part III. Accommodation of the aged persons in question]. Provision of Homes—General According to the report of the Ministry of Health for the year ended 1955, new homes opened by Local Authorities in England and Wales for the aged and infirm in need of care and attention numbered 57, bring-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29133129_0168.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
