London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Haringey 1968
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Haringey]
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The following is an analysis of the cases seen during 1968:-
Number of cases seen:-
| Age | -1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16+ | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New cases in year | 205 | 18 | 13 | 28 | 39 | 29 | 24 | 16 | 13 | 16 | 20 | 9 | 7 | 3 | 2 | — | — | 442 |
| Cases brought forward from previous year | 10 | 20 | 22 | 30 | 35 | 42 | 30 | 28 | 29 | 23 | 20 | 30 | 18 | 21 | 14 | 11 | 8 | 391 |
| Re-examinations of old and new cases | 6 | 12 | 7 | 7 | 11 | 11 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 1 | - | 2 | 1 | 1 | 78 |
| Total attendances | 911 | |||||||||||||||||
Pre-school children 492
Attending Infant and Junior Schools 297
Attending Senior Schools 122
Reason for referral among new cases:-
For diagnosis 208
Known to be deaf, examination before
admission to Blanche Nevile School 9
Immigrants to Borough known to be deaf 5
Partially-hearing, advice as to placement 4
Auditory training 6
"At risk" 194
Transfer from hospital out-patients departments 12
Advice as to placement where deafness might be
the cause of backwardness 4
Total 442
68 of the above referrals were from other London Boroughs.
Audiometry
Routine audiometric testing of school children is carried out by three full-time trained
audiometrician/vision testers. Vision screening in schools by the Keystone apparatus is now
combined with audiometric screening. The audiometricians are also closely associated with the
Audiology Unit.
Children who are due for medical examination in school have vision and hearing screening
tests a few weeks beforehand so that the results are available to the school medical officer at the
time of the examination, and any defect revealed by the tests can be discussed with the head teacher
and any necessary further investigation can be initiated. The standards for passing the screening
tests are set purposely high, and a high proportion of those who failed were found to respond to simple
corrective measures.
The percentage of children who failed "special" tests was high because these children had
either been referred especially because deafness was suspected or were already under treatment.
During the school holidays, special sessions were held at school clinics, at which an
audiometrician was present with the medical officer, for the further investigation of these failures.
At the moment routine screening for hearing and vision is carried out once in each phase of
school life. It is hoped that this will develop into screening every two years independently of school
medical examinations, but this will require the availability of more testing personnel.
The tables below give the numbers and results of audiometry tests during 1968:-
76