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Domiciliary Midwifery (National Health Service Act, 1946, Section 23)
Under Section 23 of the National Health Service Act, 1946, it is the
duty of every local health authority to provide a domiciliary midwifery
service.
The number of women having home confinements has continued to decline,
but an increasing number of mothers, with the agreement of their
doctors and midwives are using the PLANNED early discharge scheme, under
which mothers return to their own homes to the care of the domiciliary
midwife and family doctor, 48 hours after delivery.
There has been a welcome decrease in the number of mothers who take
their own early discharge without prior assessment.
The introduction in October of the Guthrie Blood Test for phenylketonuria
is being carried out by midwives on the sixth day of life on all
domiciliary and early discharge births. The staff have had to repeat, at
the request of the pathology laboratories, many of these tests on babies
delivered in hospital maternity units owing to the inadequacy of the
original samples,
The number of domiciliary midwives was reduced to six in anticipation
of the proposed radiotelephone communications systems which, it is
hoped, will be introduced early next year.
Co-operation of Midwives with General Practitioners
The domiciliary midwives are now conducting all their ante-natal
clinics in co-operation with General Practitioner-Obstetricians.Sessions
are held at the doctors' surgeries, and with two groups of General Practitioner-Obstetricians
at Maternity and Child Health Centres.
One new liaison scheme was started in the South of the Borough,which
is particularly useful as there are few doctors practising midwifery in
this area. Patients who attend these sessions include those booked for
delivery in General Practitioner Units in maternity hospitals together
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