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104
Annual Report of the London County Council, 1914.
2.—Grants from the Hospital Saturday Fund.
Every workman who subscribes to the Hospital Saturday Fund is entitled to assistance from the Fund
towards the cost of surgical appliances for himself and his family, spectacles being included among these. If
you wish to get a grant on behalf of a child, your first step is to find out whether its father is a subscriber to
the Hospital Saturday Fund, and, if he is, to get him to apply to the Honorary Collector of the Fund at his
place of employment for a Letter of Recommendation. When this letter has been procured and handed to you
the spectacles should be supplied in the usual way and the bill paid. You have then to send the receipted bill
along with the Letter of Recommendation to the Secretary of the Fund, whose address is A. W. Davis, Esq.,
Secretary, Hospital Saturday Fund, 54, Grays Inn Road, W.C., and the Committee of the Furd will make a
grant of about half the cost, which will be sent you bv Postal Order.
Special
measures for
i mproving
the attendance
of
children for
treatment.
With the growth of the Council's treatment scheme an increasing difficulty has been felt owing
to the loss of school attendance marks, since in a very large proportion of cases treatment is given during
school hours. Apart from the question of the loss of grant entailed, this loss of marks was felt to be somewhat
of an injustice to the child, inasmuch as it interfered with the obtaining of rewards for punctuality
of attendance. The Council had in common with other authorities several times approached the Board
of Education on this matter, and on the 24th June, 1914, the Board amended Article 44 of the Code
by the addition of the following paragraph (i.) :—
" (i) Any period during the School hours occupied by the medical treatment of scholars
who are not excluded from School under Article 53 (6), provided that such treatment is given
under the authority of the Local Education Authority and under the supervision of their School
Medical Officer in a place approved by the Board, and in accordance with arrangements sanctioned
by the Board under Section 13 (1) (b) of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, 1907.
The following Article (c) has also been added after Schedule iv., 23 :—
" (c) Any scholar marked absent at any meeting of the School who is found on examination
of the Special Register kept at an ' approved place ' to have spent so much time in attending
the ' approved place' as in itself or with the addition of the time spent in secular instruction
at the School would make up the minimum period required for an attendance under article
43 (b) may have the letter T entered inside the mark of absence, thus T and an attendance in
respect of that period may be reckoned. All attendances so registered should be added to the
total attendances of each child concerned at some time not later than the end of the School year."
Prior to the issue of this regulation, an attendance mark was lost on every occasion on which a
child failed to complete the prescribed period of secular instruction in consequence of attendance at a
hospital or treatment centre. At a very early stage in the development of the Council's medical treatment
scheme, this gave rise to considerable difficulty. For administrative reasons, the hours for treatment,
both at hospitals and treatment centres, fell within the school hours, except in the case of the
nursing treatment of minor ailments. The Council was thus faced with the position that every successive
development of its scheme for securing medical treatment for ailing children resulted in a lowering of
the number of attendances registered at the school, and a consequent loss of grant. Another
difficulty, which may perhaps be mentioned, though not relevant to the question of grant, arose in
connection with the teachers and the children. The teachers, whose co-operation is essential to the
successful working of any measure of school hygiene, viewed with concern the effect upon the school
attendances produced by their efforts to encourage children to obtain treatment. Moreover, the
children themselves resented very much the loss of their attendance medals which resulted upon absence
from school to obtain treatment, and in this they had the sympathy of their parents. In both cases,
the sentiments, though perfectly natural and reasonable, were directly inimical to the working of the
Council's medical treatment scheme. So far as the medal question is concerned, the difficulty has been
met by the modification of the Council's regulations for the award of medals, but the difficulty as to the
lowering of school attendances and loss of grant lay outside the Council's control. Representations
were made to the Board of Education, both by the Council and [by other local authorities and the new
regulation meets the difficulty to a very considerable extent.
This new regulation, however, has brought with it difficulties of interpretation and of administration.
As a result of representations made to the Board, the Council has received the following letter
with regard to the interpretation of the phrase " Any scholar . . . who is found ... to have spent
so much time in attending the approved place. "
" ... I am directed to state that, in view of the arrangements made by the Local
Education Authority, the Board of Education consent under Article 44 (i.) of the Code to the time
spent by a scholar in going to and from the ' approved place' for the purpose of medical treatment
being counted towards the minimum time required under Article 43 (b) in order that an
attendance may be reckoned for grant."
The arrangements referred to in the Board's letter relate to certain measures which have been
taken to secure that children return to school whenever possible and as quickly as possible. The
Council has been unable to induce the Board to recognise as attendances for grant purposes, sessions
or portions of sessions during which a child is " recovering " at home from the results of treatment.
It should be mentioned that the machinery, which it has been necessary to set up in order to
comply with the Board's regulations for the registration of attendances, involves an amount of clerical
work, which considerably reduces the financial value of the regulations to the Council.
During the year, a scheme has been put into operation whereby children and parents attending
hospitals and treatment centres are granted special facilities for travelling on the Council's tramways.
The object of the scheme was to meet a difficulty which had been felt for a long time, owing to
the fact that in many cases, parents were prevented from obtaining treatment for their children by the
travelling expenses involved, while, in other cases, long distances were travelled on foot on account
of the parent's inability to pay the fares.