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77
SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE
The Inner London Education Authority is responsible for this service but, by virtue of an
agreement made under Section 32 of the London Government Act 1963, there is joint use by the
Authority and the Borough of professional staff, premises and equipment. The Director of Public
Health is the Principal School Medical Officer of the Inner London Education Authority for the area
and is responsible to that Authority for the day to day running of the service.
The continued co-operation of the Medical Adviser's department of the Inner London Education
Authority, the local Divisional Education Officer and head teachers of the schools in the Borough has
been much appreciated throughout the year.
The greater part of the service has continued on the same lines as reported for 1972, the only
substantial change being the withdrawal of medical officers from regular attendance at Minor
Ailment Clinics. These clinics were then run solely for the treatment of verrucae under the title of
Wart Clinics.
THE HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN
The school roll for the Borough continued to decrease, the May 1973 figure being 31, 857, the
corresponding 1972 figure being 32,902. Routine medical inspections were carried out on 36.7% of
the children, and of those inspected 0.07% were thought to be in an unsatisfactory physical
condition; the comparable figures for 1972 were 38.9% and 0.1% respectively.
ROUTINE & NON ROUTINE MEDICAL INSPECTIONS
Details of routine and non-routine medical inspections are given in the following tables.
Variations between the figures for 1973 and those for 1972 are, in the main of little or no significance,
but it is worthy of note that the numbers of children requiring treatment for vision defects have
increased fairly regularly over the last five years; this could well be due to the introduction of the
Keystone vision Screening system in 1971.