View report page

On January 11th, 1916, the following further report on the work
of the health visitors was given at the request of the Committee:—
"The present duties of the health visitors consist in (1) Paying
visits to houses where births have recently occurred. (2) Visiting
any cases of the following infectious diseases: phthisis, ophthalmia
neonatorum, puerperal fever, polio-myelitis and diarrhoea. (3)
Various other special visits are paid by request, or where it is thought
the investigations may be more suitably carried out by a health
visitor than a sanitary inspector.
"The number of births in 1914 was 3,727, and of these 2,777
received primary visits, but the number of secondary visits was only
322. It is calculated that one health visitor cannot on the average
make more than 500 primary visits in a year if the babies receiving
these visits are to continue under adequate supervision up to school
age. From the above figures it will be seen that each of our health
visitors paid 1,388 primary visits and 161 secondary visits, and it is,
therefore, evident that the large majority of the babies were not
kept under supervision at all, as the other work prevented anything
but the very worst cases being attended to subsequent to the first
visit. With four health visitors all the recent births in the Borough
could receive one visit, which means about 900 primary visits to
each health visitor. This would not come up to the standard above
suggested, but it would, nevertheless, be a vast improvement on
the present system, and I think that the children requiring it could
receive some supervision up to school age.
"The question at present is not one of overworking the health
visitors, since it is physically impossible to pay more than a certain
number of visits in the day, and their time is at present quite fully
occupied. Conscientious visitors may, however, be worried because
they feel that their efforts to overtake the work are useless, and such
a state of affairs eventually results in inefficient work.
"Excluding the visits to births, the total number of other visits
paid in 1914 was 1,355, the large majority of them being to phthisical
patients. In the suggested addition to the staff a certain number of
ante-natal visits will have to be included. I would warn the Committee,
however, not to be led away by figures, because if you compute