Problems of Social Policy? History of the Second World War Series
Vol. II. By Richard MTitmuss. H.M. Stationery Office, and Longmans. 25s.
This scholarly, well-documented and vividly written account of social policy during the war will recall to many the problems with which they wrestled in the years between 1939 and 1945. They will see these same problems against the whole background of planning and the interlocking responsibilities of the Government Departments, the Local Authorities and the Voluntary Organizations which all contributed, argued and settled into a more or less workable co-operation.
The book is dominated by three main topics, the evacuation, the hospital services and the care of the homeless people. It is divided into four main parts. Part I. The Expected War. Here the author discusses the plans which were made to meet the shock of war. He points out how grossly over estimated were the number of expected casualties, both physical and psychological, with a resulting wastage of hospital beds and hardship on civilian sick ; and yet no thought had been given to any provision for the homeless other than that of temporary shelter with a diet indistinguishable from that authorized for the casual wards.
Part II. The Invisible War. This gives an account of the evacuation and the hospitals in transition with a discussion of the difficulties caused by local government boundaries and limitations. Part III. The Battles. Describes the time of the air bombardment which revealed deficiencies in planning and how these were met.
Part IV. The Long Years. This is concerned with what actually happened in reconstruction and in the growth of the social services and that reorientation which led on to the establishment of the welfare state. It also discusses the price paid for the bitter struggle in human terms whilst placing due credit upon what was to come out of that experience. Readers of Mental Health will be especially interested in the account of the effect of the war on the civilian population, both as it was anticipated and as it actually occurred. The Government expected that widespread neurosis and panic would be a reaction to bombing whilst the psychiatrists estimated that psychiatric casualties might exceed physical casualties by as much as three to one and that the number of sufferers from mental and nervous disorders would in the event of war, ” increase to an extent never before experienced These gloomy forebodings were not fulfilled. There was no dramatic increase in mental and nervous illness, the number of suicides fell and the statistics for drunkenness fell by over one half. Mr. Titmuss asks if ” the experts were perhaps too remote from rf?!f the ordinary people of Great Britain who in the dangerous times of the past had shown no lack of defiance and steadfastness ? ” He points out the wisdom of the Government’s policy in allowing evacuation to be voluntary (except in areas which had to be evacuated for military purposes) so that it ^jight act as a shock absorber and to the value of the family, the group and the known neighbourhood m times of danger.
The book places due emphasis on the increasing recognition of the value of the professional social porker and tells of the appointment, under the Ministry of Health, of welfare officers to the Civil defence Regions to stimulate, advise and give Practical assistance to local authorities on the development of welfare provision for evacuees and homeless persons. Social workers will be interested to note how comprehensive was the field which these workers were expected to cover and we are told it happened that ” as the pressure of events forced closer together the evacuation and post raid services the interest and duties of these welfare officers broadened to cover a wider area of the s?cial services “.
The work of the Mental Health Emergency Committee, later to be merged into the Provisional National Council for Mental Health, is given a Place in the book mainly in connection with the loan of psychiatric social workers to the reception area. This service was soon recognized and hnanced by the Ministry of Health and more workers Were sent to help with the ” difficult ” evacuated children where they arranged for hostels and pressed t?r the provision of psychiatric advice and treatment centres. The author states ” by the end of 1942 thirty-two psychiatric social workers had been aPP0inted by local authorities largely as a result ?f the educational activities of the Mental Health Emergency Committee And he continues ” this Organization continued to press the Ministry of health for support and financial aid, and indeed sometimes embarassed the Department by its enthusiastic campaign for extensions in psychiatric Work to many branches of the social service “. that as it may the Committee was only too Woefully aware of the sad shortage of trained Psychiatric social workers.
The book ends with a discussion of what is termed unfinished business and closes with this Pregnant paragraph :
” perhaps more lasting harm was wrought to the minds and hearts of men, women and children than to their bodies. The disturbance to family life, the separation of mothers and fathers from their children, of husbands from their wives, of pupils from their schools, of people from their recreation, of society from the pursuits ofpeace?perhaps oil these indignities of war have left wounds which will take time to heal and infinite Patience to understand.’’’’ D.H.H.
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