The missing relative: the home help service in England and Wales 1918-1974 part I

Although recent work in social policy has illustrated how the work of home helps means that they straddle the health-social services boundary, there has been relatively little work on the earlier history of this service. In this the first of two articles, the author attempts to remedy this neglect, and considers the development of the home help service in England and Wales between 1918 and 1974, examining the overall evolution of the service. In the second article (to be published in the next issue of the journal), three themes are discussed in greater detail: the issue of training, regional variations in provision, and what home helps actually did for their clients. Although the focus is on England and Wales as a whole, in the second part the author illustrates particular themes through a case study of the Midlands city of Leicester, a local authority in which the home help service was particularly highly developed.