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82
HEALTH VISITING SERVICE
Section 24
The growth and development of health visiting is unfortunately
constructed in this Area as elsewhere by the limited number of qualified
women available.
In Hornsey and Tottenham the number of health visitors is well
below the establishment and in order to keep the school health services
operating satisfactorily, clinic nurses are employed, mainly to relieve
health visitors of this part of their work. The assistance which is given
to health visitors by this means is limited to clinical aid and does not
relieve them of the preventive and sociological part of their work.
New entrants to the profession barely make up the normal wastage
occasioned by retirement or resignation, and at the same time the
growing range of health visiting places a heavier load on each health
visitor. On this account old standards of health visitor establishment
should be discarded and an increase made in the ratio of health visitors
to the population if the requirements of the service are to be met.
This may entail improved conditions for the profession if a serious
attempt at recruitment is envisaged. The number of home visits to
children in the 0-1 year age group has increased slightly during the
year; there has been a small fall in the number of visits to expectant
mothers and children in the 1-5 year age group and children of school
age. An increase is also shown in the number of visits to homes for
other purposes. This is accounted for by a larger percentage of visits
to the aged and by follow-up B.C.G. visits. The total number of visits
to homes for all purposes shows a slight rise.

Health Visitors, Family Doctors, Hospitals and Voluntary Organisations
An informal meeting of health visitors and general practitioners
was held in Hornsey on 27th October, 1955. The response to the