View report page

Orthodontics
Correction of faulty and irregular positioning of teeth has expanded dramatically
since inspections of secondary school children have been resumed. The orthodontist
Mrs. A. Ward has increased her sessions from 6 to 8.

There has been a noticable drop of patients referred to consultants.
Dental Laboratory
Central Laboratories provide (as before) all orthodontic appliances, dentures, inlays
etc., but the orders have not always been completed in 2 weeks owing to shortage
of technicians over a considerable period. The quality of the work is of the same high
standard.
Anaesthesia
48 sessions have taken place during the year. Dr. A. Whitfield attends Deptford and
Lewisham school treatment centres, Dr. E. C. Dawson attends Downham school
treatment centre.
Local anaesthesia is used extensively for routine dental treatment.
One selected child had his conservative treatment carried out under intravenous
anaesthesia.
Dental Anaesthetic emergencies
The ambulance training unit gave a demonstration on resuscitation and mouth to
mouth breathing followed by a film, at Lewisham Medical Centre in July. It was
attended by dental officers, dental surgery assistants, health visitors and school
nurses who assist at dental anaesthetic sessions.
Dental Caravan
The Inner London Education Authority Caravan has been in use for 68 sessions on
three four-weekly occasions. Two were in term time and extremely well attended,
the third period was during the summer vacation as a trial, to assess attendance.
Although the children live in close vicinity and sessions were heavily over-booked,
the failure rate was higher than expected. The dental caravan is an ideal solution for
bringing dentistry to schools, acceptance rates soar, but unfortunately this cannot be
followed up as two caravans have to be shared between 12 boroughs. It seems essential
that the number of caravans should be increased to six, to enable two neighbouring
boroughs to plan their programme well in advance, including deployment of staff.
Maternal and Child Health
This service has been maintained, but expanded only slightly due to temporary
shortage of staff.
31