London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

View report page

City of Westminster 1972

Report of the Medical Officer of Health

This page requires JavaScript

44
Liaison with St. Mary's Hospital, Harrow Road, continues as before with health visitors visiting the
patients in the Maternity Wards to advise on family planning and make appointments for the clinic held at
283A Harrow Road which the Gynaecological Registrar from the hospital attends. Since May 1972 when
family planning supplies became free, the numbers attending the family planning clinics have risen and it
may be necessary to increase the number of sessions.
At the end of 1972 the Area Nursing Officer visited the Samaritan Hospital to interview the nursing staff
of the Wednesday evening Family Planning clinic who were to be transferred to the City Council when the
Health Department became responsible for the clinic in January 1973.
The Harrow Road Clinic suffered during the year from shortage of nursing staff, particularly of school/
clinic nurses. Two health visitors left in September, one to take the Health Visitor Tutor's course, the other
to study for a degree, neither of whom it has been as yet possible to replace. The extra work taken on by
the two health visitors who are attached to the general practitioner group practices means that they are
not able to relieve the health visitors in the Centre when required in such instances as annual leave; at times
therefore some of the staff are considerably overworked. The group practices where the health visitors are
attached have also asked for more health visitor assistance which of course is not possible at present with
an overall shortage of staff.
District Nursing Services
The Centre for the District Nursing Services for Area 4 is situated at 117 Sutherland Avenue, W.9. Here
again there have been some changes and shortages of staff which have added to the work of the staff on
duty but as many letters from patients and patients' relatives have been received expressing gratitude for
nursing care given, the nurses are to be congratulated on their standard of work. One of the new members
of Staff, Miss de Monti, SEN who completed her district nurse training on the area, recently won the Most
Outstanding Pupil of the Year award from her training school, the Middlesex Hospital.
The staff have also given their time to other tasks in addition to their routine nursing duties. A six
half-day training course for Bathing Attendants in the City of Westminster was organised by Miss Ball, the
nursing officer in charge of the centre and staff from the Centre and Area 1 district nurses participated in
training courses for Home Helps and Care Assistants, organised by the Social Services Department.
In July 1972 at the instigation of the Queen's Institute, the Nursing Officer was honoured with an
invitation to a garden party at Buckingham Palace.
At Christmas the nursing staff distributed food and gifts to needy patients provided by the District
Nursing Association and the children of St. Saviour's School. On Christmas Eve staff helped to deliver to
patients frozen meals provided by the City of Westminster Old People's Welfare Association and to transport
patients to and from Leonora House, Lanark Road, W.9 on Christmas Day for the lunch, entertainment and
tea provided by the Association.

NURSE TRAINING

During the year Health Department nursing staff attended In-service Training, Refresher and Management Courses and Conferences as indicated:—

Courses/ConferencesNo. of staff attended
Middle Management Courses2
First Line Management Courses3
Health Visitor Refresher Courses6
District Nurse Refresher Courses2
Study Days and Conferences93

In addition, the City Council sponsored and assisted in the training of 8 health visitor students and 6
district nurse students.