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134
LONDON BOROUGH OF LAMBETH
SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE
Report of the Principal School Medical Officer for the Year 1969
The Inner London Education Authority is responsible for the School
Health 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 Council of professional staff, premises, and equipment. The Medical
Officer of 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.
During the past five years the number of treatments given for various
conditions in Local Authority clinics in Lambeth shown on the whole a most
satisfactory downward trent, indicative of the steadily improving health of the
Borough's school-children.
The incidence of juvenile rheumatism had become so negligible that in
May 1969 it was possible to wind up the Rheumatism Supervisory Service
altogether, closing the last of the rheumatism clinics. Heart conditions, once
closely associated with rheumatic damage, have naturally also decreased and the
murmurs which are now referred from medical inspections for investigation
frequently and happily prove to be of minor or of no clinical significance.
Nutrition has greatly improved. The Special Investigation Clinics no
longer have to carry stocks of cod liver oil and malt, haliborange and vitamin
tablets; children falling below the height/weight ratio health average are rare,
indeed obesity has become far more common, from over plentiful diet composed
mainly of carbohydrates. This year even enuresis has shown a decline, from 221
new cases in 1968 to 175 new cases in 1969.
The number of minor ailments treated remain much the same - figures for
1969 are given in the accompanying table - but the defects themselves have
become progressively minor. Otorrhoea has almost disappeared because of
early diagnosis of ear infections and treatment with antibiotics. Conjunctivitis,
once a very common condition running through whole classes and even whole
schools, was down to 27 cases for the whole Borough during 1969. Impetigo
and allied skin conditions, equally prevalent at one time have also declined but
more gradually, there were 196 cases in 1969 as against 283 in 1966.
Apart from occasional accidents, e.g. cuts, abrasions, foreign bodies, the
cases seen in the minor ailment clinics are in fact now predominantly plantar
warts, verrucas and fungus infections.