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and experience, etc., and should be more directly responsible for the
work of the centres being in strict co-ordination and amalgamation
with the work of the Council's Public Health Department through the
Maternity and Child Welfare Committee. This Statutory Committee
was established by the Council on the 24th October, 1918 (Minutes
1917-18, page 1249), under the Maternity and Child Welfare Act, 1918,
the members of the Committee being elected yearly on the 9th November,
by the Council, which co-opts, at the same time, on the Committee
four Representatives of the voluntary centres. The members of the
first Maternity and Child Welfare Committee were appointed on the
9th November, 1918, and the voluntary centres' representatives first
co-opted on the 23rd January, 1919, one for each of the four Parliamentary
Divisions of the Borough, on the nominations of the voluntary
welfare centres.
When first the Scheme was inaugurated and the respective centres
had been organised, the routine administration was for the Council's
official Health Visitors (six in number) to make the first visits to the
houses wherein births had been officially notified under the Notification
of Births Act, 1907. This method was found to be convenient from an
administrative point of view, as it secured uniformity of records, which
were then all kept at the Town Hall, but, as time went on and the
work of the centres increased, it was found also that this method was
liable to give rise to a certain amount of overlapping and duplicate
visiting and re-visiting by different Health Visitors (voluntary from
the centres and official from the Town Hall). Consequently, it was
arranged, on the suggestion of the Ministry of Health, to alter the
procedure, so as to allow of first visits, as well as other visits
(re-visits), being made by the voluntary Health Visitors attached to
the various centres, the official Health Visitors (now consequently
reduced in number to four) to be in constant touch with the voluntary
Health Visitors, and to act as liaison officers between the Public
Health Department and the voluntary centres, thereby ensuring, on
the one hand, the visiting and re-visiting from the various centres of
all cases living within their respective jurisdictions, and, on the other
hand, preventing overlapping and duplication. This altered procedure,
made at the suggestion of the Ministry of Health, is working satisfactorily,
the Council's four official Health Visitors being responsible to