View report page

23
The Borough Council reserves the right in particular circumstances
to vary this scale in favour of the applicant, subject to
every case of alteration being specially sanctioned by the SubCommittee.
Each applicant for a grant has to fill up and sign a printed
form of application.
The family is then visited by the Health Visitor or Maternity
Superintendent, who, after full consideration of the home circumstances
and condition of the mother and children, recommends
a grant of milk and/or dinners.
Thereafter the Medical Officer of Health immediately reviews
the whole case, increases the grant recommended, if need be,
and an order is forthwith sent to the milkman or dinner centre,
and information of the grant is sent to the applicant.
Urgent cases are dealt with at once before enquiries are
completed, and the grants are re-adjusted later when full information
has been received.
All grants are periodically reviewed by a Sub-Committee of
the Borough Council, which sits for about one-and-a-half to two
hours every alternate Monday afternoon. In this connection it is
pleasing to record that a grant has never been refused to any
necessitous mother or child.
Generally speaking, grants to children between 1 and 5
years are only made in cases of illness, where a medical certificate
is furnished.
During the year 1923, 1,589 applications for grants were
received, an average of 132 per month; the largest proportion of
applications was made during the December quarter, 1923.
2,069 grants were made, comprising 1,575 cases; in 14 cases no
grants were made owing principally to the income of the applicants
being in excess of the scale approved by the Ministry of
Health. The grants comprised fresh milk in 1,391 cases, dinners
in 522, and dried milk for weaned babies in 156 cases.