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Established within the walls of the School for Dental Auxiliaries at New Cross
Hospital is a London Borough of Lewisham Dental Clinic. This is at present staffed
by a Dental Officer, Mrs. Clare Leeming, and three certificated Dental Auxiliaries,
Mrs. Beedham, Miss Solomons and Mrs. King.
All four are Officers of the London Borough of Lewisham Health Dept. but
seconded to the School for Dental Auxiliaries for the purpose of staffing the Local
Authority Dental Clinic established there in 1963 as a unit of the former London
County Council Dental Health Services.
As Director of the School I would like to say that the Local Authority Dental
Unit is carrying out work of extreme value in the clinical field, including as it does
advanced conservative and orthodontic procedures. These procedures are, of course,
carried out by the Dental Officer.
Although the routine inspections in the local schools are normally the responsibility
of the Dental Officers on the teaching staff of the School for Dental Auxiliaries,
the Local Authority Clinic undertakes the function of regular re-inspection of those
children who attend as the result of the now well-established recall system which
includes over 7,000 child patients. Mrs. Leeming as the Officer responsible for the
carrying out of inspections under the recall system has also, as part of her duties,
the allocation of the various categories of patients found to require treatment as the
result of these examinations. Some of these who are in need of advanced techniques
are retained by her for treatment which she herself carries out. Others are allocated
to the Dental Auxiliaries whom she herself supervises, the remainder and, of course,
the greater proportion are referred back to the Clinical Department of the School
to be treated by students under the strict supervision of the qualified dental teaching
staff.
The establishment of a Local Authority Unit within this School has proved to be
outstandingly successful and I would like to express my appreciation of the happy
relations which exist between the Officers of the School and those employed by the
London Borough of Lewisham.
Much of this goodwill is due to the encouragement and support which is so unselfishly
given to us by the M.O.H., the Chief Dental Officer and other members of
the Health Department. In partiuclar I would like to thank Mrs. Leeming for the
way she has handled her Clinic and for her unfailing good humour and sense of cooperation.
During the course of the year 1966 the School dealt with over 25,000 attendances
for treatment. Approximately 10,000 teeth were conserved and each child who
attended received oral hygiene treatment and was instructed in the proper use of the
tooth brush.
Dental health education talks by our senior students are now routine in most of the
local authority schools within the Lewisham area and indeed these students are also
in constant demand for the purpose of such talks in other Greater London Boroughs.
I cannot praise too highly the co-operative attitude shown by the head teachers
of the schools with which we are associated. It is evident to me that even the most
nervous student embarking upon the first of her talks is soon put at ease by the
kindly welcome she invariably receives from the school staff.
It is now known that the scheme for the training of dental auxiliaries at New Cross
is no longer in the experimental stage, the Government having accepted that dental
auxiliaries have a valuable contribution to make to the dental health of the community.
I am confident, therefore, that the future will provide even closer ties than
those which now so happily exist, between this School and our colleagues of the
local authority services.
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