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clerical assistance at the Council's Centres so that the health visitors
should have more time for the more important work of home visiting.
The Westminster Health Society were also asked to consider as to increasing
their health visiting staff and obtaining clerical assistance.
Minor Ailment Clinics.—
Linking up of Infant Welfare Centres with School Clinics.—Among
the measures recommended by the Minister as worthy of consideration
was the extended use of clinics for the treatment of minor ailments on
the lines adopted by the education authorities for school children.
The Council in its survey recalled the voluntary efforts established in
the City in 1903, when the City of Westminster Health Society was
founded. Its objects included those to which the Minister has now drawn
particular attention. The Society from its earliest days had organised
co-operation with the school care committees and had achieved continuity
in the medical history of the children from infancy to school age and
beyond. During the War and since the Society had not been able to
maintain this scheme of co-operation so completely as in the pre-war
years because of the lack of sufficient voluntary workers.
The City is well supplied with treatment centres—there are 13 general
and special hospitals, four provident dispensaries, and five clinics of special
character. At present, cases attending the welfare centres and requiring
treatment for physical defects or for minor ailments, and who cannot
afford private medical attendance, are referred by the centre medical
officers to the most appropriate of those institutions. With the proposed
increased visiting of toddlers and the detection of defects, the Council
considered that some definite arrangements should be made to secure
more readily accessible facilities for treatment, and directed the Medical
Officer of Health to enquire into the possibility of linking up with the
treatment centres of the education authority in the City, whereby cases
from the welfare centres could be treated along with school children.
The Council was also of opinion that there was a definite need for
a consulting centre in the City to which cases difficult to diagnose or
presenting serious features might be referred for special investigation or
observation, e.g., where blood, bacteriological, or X-ray examinations
were required, or for in-patient treatment where necessary. Negotiations
with the authorities of the Infants' Hospital, Vincent Square, are accordingly
being initiated as to establishing a consulting centre, etc.
Toddlers' Clinics.—The Minister in his Circular mentioned that in
some areas there were special clinics for toddlers. While the Westminster
Health Society has conducted a special toddlers' clinic once a month for