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All general practitioners in the Borough now have an open invitation to share with the
mental health staff in a lunch-hour case conference on the first Wednesday in each month.
Those general practitioners who have come, have expressed appreciation of the value of meeting
to discuss mutual problems with their colleagues in the mental health field, and we are hoping
that more doctors will respond to this invitation during the coming year.
YOUNG PEOPLE'S COUNSELLING SERVICE
With the help of the Borough's consultant psychiatrist, a counselling service for young
people with emotional problems was launched during the year - a further activity in the
preventive field, which is aimed at helping young people to achieve and maintain mental
health in adult life.
LIAISON WITH FRIERN HOSPITAL
Closer links are developing all the time with our catchment hospitals, and during the
year two combined meetings have taken place when our Islington consultant psychiatrist and
social work team have met with Frien Hospital consultants, social workers and senior nursing
staff. As well as these general meetings, which contribute much towards understanding and
co-operation, small combined meetings at a senior level have taken place quarterly to discuss
matters of mutual concern.
Four Islington social workers have regularly attended ward rounds at Friern to maintain
contact with patients and advise on the borough's psychiatric services. This ward round
commitment has now Extended to Halliwick Hospital.
HOSPITAL ADMISSION
In spite of developments in social services for the mentally disordered there are
unfortunately still a number of cases of sudden breakdown. Mental health social workers
continue to provide a twenty-four hour service - weekends and public holidays included
to make provision for those who. because of their acute illness, are in urgent need of
treatment in a psychiatric hospital.
SUBNORMALITY
The principal medical officer, who specialises in this field, acts as consultant to the
mental health team on the placement of mentally handicapped persons of all ages in the Council's
training centres, the nursery for mentally handicapped children, day nurseries and in various
residential homes or hostels for short or long-term care.
The special assessment and advisory clinics which have now been extended to three centres
in the Borough have continued regularly throughout the year. At the clinics the needs of
mentally and physically handicapped children under school age are assessed and plans are made
for their future education. Parents receive counsel and support and, when desirable, the
children are seen in their own homes for assessment in familiar surroundings. Each month
throughout the year an average of three children were seen in their own homes and twelve in
clinics.
SOCIAL WORK WITH TOE MENTALLY HANDICAPPED
Included in the wide variety of activities in this field is supportive work for a number
of mentally handicapped adults who can barely manage their own affairs. An example is the case
of a man whose aged mother died during the year. The mental health social worker, with the
help of the Islington Society for the Mentally Handicapped and the Borough's Home Help and
Home Nursing Services, has managed to keep the man going in his own home, adequately clothed
and nourished and, most difficult of all, free from debt.
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