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Council to make appropriate arrangements with each Borough Council
for that Council to provide a salaried midwives service, either by direct
employment or through a district nursing association, for any part of
their Borough not provided for by a teaching general or maternity
hospital (every expectant woman to have free choice of at least two
midwives). The Standing Joint Committee recommended that the
arrangements already in operation whereby certain Metropolitan
Borough Councils employed midwives direct, and other Metropolitan
Borough Councils made contribution to voluntary organisations in
respect of the provision of midwives in domiciliary work, should be
continued.
The Hampstead Borough Council had made arrangements previously
with the two voluntary nursing associations in the Borough
for the provision of domiciliary midwifery services, and made the
following financial contributions, viz. : Kilburn & West Hampstead
District Nursing Association, £100 per annum for midwifery and £100
per annum for maternity nursing, and Hampstead District Nursing
Association—Maternity and Midwifery cases £3 3s. Od. per case.
During 1937 the Kilburn Nursing Association midwives attended 109
cases whilst those of the Hampstead Nursing Association attended 23
cases. Of the total 132 cases 57 were attended in the company of a
medical practitioner. The Maternity and Child Welfare Committee were
of opinion that the existing arrangements provided efficient and adequate
domiciliary midwifery services, linked up with the health visiting
arrangements and also with the arrangements made in the Borough for
attendance of cases at the ante-natal and post-natal clinics, and recommended
that the present arrangements should be continued by the
Borough Council as agents for the County Council. Upon their
recommendation, the Borough Council resolved to inform the County
Council that for the time being, the present contributions made to
the voluntary nursing associations in respect of domiciliary midwifery
services would be continued under any new scheme which was adopted,
and also decided to draw the attention of the County Council to the
observations of the Standing Joint Committee. Ultimately, the Borough
Council ceased to contribute to the Nursing Associations in respect
of this work as from 31st March, 1938.
The proposals of the London County Council for giving effect
to Section (1) of the Act, having been accepted by the Ministry of