[Report 1948] / Medical Officer of Health, Cambridgeshire County Council.

  • Cambridgeshire (England). County Council
Date:
1948
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1948] / Medical Officer of Health, Cambridgeshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/36 (page 16)
    THE DOMESTIC HELP SERVICE Wliile most of the duties of the County Council as Local Health Authority under the National Health Service Act were obligatory. Section 29 of the Act gave it power to make such arrangements as t Minister of Health might approve for the provision ^ for households where there are persons who are ill, mothers, mentally defective persons, persons or children not compulsorv school age, but did not specifically require it to do so U hile ^st of thl other servdees provided by the authority were to be free of charge to the recipient at the time of the service the Act gave the authority to make charges according to the means uf the recipien in the case of domestic help. , j u 4.Uc. Previous to the coming into force of the Act there , Borough of Cambridge a domestic help service organised by the omens Voluntary Services Sn behalf of the Borough Council while in the ruml area there had been for many years a service of home helps matermty cases which latterly had degenerated into the proMsion of nnanc assistance towards help found by the midwife or the patient rather than the actual provision of the service to the patient. In each case recipient of the help had borne part of the cost where the family income The County Council decided to ask Women’s Voluntary Services to continue to organise a service on its behalf in the Boroug i o ^am bridge handing the dutv of day to day control to the Borough Sub- Committee and its officers. Women’s Voluntary Services appointed an organiser and assistant organiser of the serMce wor ing rom i . 1 • r 4-j^ r^rrpQTii'^flflOTI ID illll own Slice and their salaries were refunded to the organisation n by the Council. In the rural area, considerable expansion of the old home help service was envisaged and a full time domestic help organiser was appointed with the main duties of recruiting a sufficient number ot women, either whole time or part time, suitable foi giMUg c omes ic help and of apportioning the time of those available among le a]ip i cants for help to the best possible advantage. ... . r j It was decided that in both areas a scale of contribiitionsprit forward by the County Councils Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations and the London County Council and recoinmended for consideration by the Ministry ot Health should be operated. . , /n The remuneration to be paid to the home helps was fixed at 1/J per liour during the first year of service, 1/10 during the second yeai. 1/11 during the third year and 2/- during the fourth and subsequent years. The full rate to be charged to any householder whose means enabled him to pay it was fixed at 2/- ])er hour and the difference between that sum and the amount to be paid to the home helps was to be ])re- surned to cover other expenses such as those of administration and travelling. Where a householder appeared to be unable to pay at the rate of 2/- per hour for the amount of time required the scale of contri- butions mentioned in the previous paragraph would operate.