View report page

53
During the year five thousand visits to centres were recorded outside clinic
session times. Individuals attending outside clinic times come because they have
a specific problem to discuss and their visits to the centres tend to be rather
longer than the visits during clinic session times. The average amount of time
was thirty minutes. The recording of these visits both in the terms of number
of visitors and time spent has provided a facet of the work of health visitors
which had gone unrecognised.
The number of evening clinic sessions was increased during the year and
there are now four sessions held regularly. Attendances at these sessions vary,
and are lower than day time sessions but there does appear to be a need to provide
a service of this sort for mothers who cannot attend during the day.
Creche sessions continue to be well attended in spite of the increase in the
number of alternative services indicating a continued need for mothers to be
relieved of their small children for the occasional morning or afternoon.
The increase in the number of well baby sessions held in general practitioner
surgeries has resulted in a decrease in the number of clinic attendances. However,
the reduction in the number of attendances enables both medical and nursing
staff to give more time to mothers attending. These mothers frequently have
problems they wish to discuss not always related to the care of their under fives.
Cases visited by Health Visitors Number of cases
(included in total)
seen at special
request of
Total
Number Hospital G.P.
Children born in 1972 5,010 13 32
Other children aged under 5 16,654 17 40
Persons aged between 5 and 16 seen as
part of health visiting (i.e. excluding
those seen as part of school health
service) 1,633 15 67
Persons aged between 17 and 64 3,430 44 156
Persons aged 65 and over 4,317 214 429
Household visited on account of
tuberculosis 22 1 7
Households visited on account of other
infectious diseases 137 1 13
Households visited for any other reason 2,109 101 116
Total number of effective visits and
revisits 90,664
Total number of unsuccessful visits 20,581