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directly, with two exceptions. A Youth Advisory Clinic (one session per week) is
provided by the Association at one of the Health Centres, and a Brook Advisory
Centres Limited Clinic is provided (one session per week) in Lewisham Hospital.
A Marital Advice session previously provided by the Association was discontinued
during the year when the present counsellor resigned. The Council continues to
make financial payment to each of the above-mentioned organisations.
The transfer of services was accomplished very smoothly and without interruption;
clinics continued to be held in the same premises and with largely the same staffs
of doctors, nurses and lay workers. The willing co-operation offered by the officers
of the South East London Branch of the Family Planning Association and by the
transferring clinic staffs contributed in no small measure to the success of the
change-over.
The Family Planning Association has been very active in the borough and has
laid a sound basis from which the service can be maintained and extended. The
links between the local authority and the Association will not of course be severed.
Training facilities will continue to be available and Association speakers undertake
engagements for various organisations in Lewisham.
The voluntary hospital visiting scheme, introduced by the Association, continues
in Lewisham Hospital where both the maternity and gynaecological wards are
visited and non-medical questions from patients who wish to avail themselves of
family planning services are discussed.
Towards the end of the year approval under the Urban Programme was obtained
for the introduction of two new family planning services: special clinics for at risk
groups and a comprehensive follow-up scheme. The special clinics are for women
who are in need of family planning advice but not receiving it because of race or
language difficulties or lack of motivation or initiative. The follow-up scheme
applies to all family planning clinics and involves reminder letters where appointments
are not kept and, where appropriate, investigation and advice from a health
visitor. It is never the intention however to badger people to attend clinics against
their will. All the administrative arrangements necessary to set up the services had
been completed by the end of the year and the services were to be introduced at
the beginning of 1972.
The domiciliary service, provided from the outset by the local authority, continues
to flourish, the Borough being divided into two areas for this purpose with bases
at the Speedwell and Boundfield Road Health Centres. A health visitor from each
of these Centres spends one session per week visiting patients in conjunction with
the doctor. There has been a slight change in the pattern of visiting in that the
majority of revisits are now made by the doctor or the health visitor according to
the circumstances, and only a minority by the doctor and health visitor together.
The introduction of the special clinics under the Urban Programme should lead to
a slight fall in the numbers of domiciliary patients.
Since May 1971 there has been established a direct liaison between the domiciliary
service and the Family Planning Association Vasectomy Clinic based in Dulwich
Hospital which enables counselling of married couples resident in Lewisham to be
carried out within the borough. This also leads to a significant reduction in the
waiting time for the operation. There are no legal powers to provide financial
assistance to men who require vasectomy.
Consultation and advice throughout the service continues to be provided free of
charge to patients without restriction by residence, and free supplies are available
to medical and non-medical necessitous cases. Very largely as a result of the introduction
of a new necessitous category "where there is a child in the family under
the age of one year", the number of cases where free supplies were given increased
from 565 in 1970 to 2,387 in 1971.
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