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To the Chairman and Members of the
Maternity and Child Welfare Committee.
Madam Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The following pages give figures relating to the work of the
Welfare Centres, Health Visitors, Domiciliary Midwives, Alexandra
Maternity Home, Day Nurseries and the Home Helps Service.
These institutions and services together provide an ever
expanding system of social medicine, the value of which is being
more and more appreciated by the public, about 80 to 90 per cent of
whom make use of one or other of them.
In 1946 the attendances of expectant mothers at Ante-nata1
Clinics were 10,415 as compared with 2,283 in 1938.
Infants and children under 5 years of age made 32,934
attendances in 1946 in comparison with 18,911 in 1938. The other
services have expanded in the same proportion.
The increased work is partly explained by the exceptionally high
birth rate now prevailing (2,008 births in 1946 as compared with 1,200
in pre-war years) and. partly by a greater proportion of the population
making use of the services; but it must also be borne in mind that
additional duties now fall on the Clinic staffs on account of
rationing of food, clothes, etc. There is the distribution of .
National Dried Milk, Orange Juice and Cod Liver Oil for the
Ministry of Food. There arc certificates to furnish to expectant
mothers for extra rations, shots and furniture; Family Allowance
certificates and forms to fill up in connection with lost Ration
Books are other items which add to the clerical duties of the staff.
The telephone has become a much more popular means of communication
with the Centres.
For various reasons, therefore, there has been steadily increasing
pressure of work at the Centres and this is likely to go on increasing
as the facilities improve in quality and expand in scope. For example,
the Fortis Green Welfare Centre, opened less than two years ago, is
doing double the work which could be done at the smaller and less
conveniently situated Coldfall Welfare Centre which it replaced. New
Welfare Centres are about to be opened at The Campsbourne and at Stroud
Green Road which it is hoped will relieve pressure at the Town Hall
Centre and at Burgoyne Hall Centre.
Consideration is being given to the appointment of part-time
clerica1 assistance at the Centres to relieve the Health Visitors for
their proper function of giving health advice.
I desire to acknowledge the great value of the contribution which
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