London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London

Hornsey 1958

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hornsey, Borough of]

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Table: An analysis of the work of the service during the past three years is shown in the table below:—

An analysis of the work of the service during the past three years is shown in the table below:—

195819571956
No. of deliveries attended698555509
No. of visits made14,73012,1638,846
No. of hospital confinements discharged before 14th day987638
No. of visits made910708354
No. of cases in which medical aid was summoned297176143
No. of cases in which gas and air analgesia was administered588431400
No. of cases in which pethidine was administered483322265
No. of cases in which trichloroethylene was administered654633

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HEALTH VISITING SERVICE
(Section 24)
The main work of the health visitor in the welfare centre and the home
is well known and is concerned with the maintenance of health and wellbeing
of each member of the family from the youngest to the oldest.
Health visitors receive a great many telephone calls from parents,
almoners, family doctors and others during the year. This direct and
harmonious interchange between those concerned shows how much
team work has advanced in recent years. The majority of these calls are
requests for home visits, for advice or reports of one kind or another.
Requests also come in for early visits to those being admitted or discharged
from hospitals. Visits of this kind are increasing and give the health
visitor an opportunity to prevent or relieve distress and provide a firm
intermediate link between patients, their homes and hospitals.
Local hospitals have provided medical reports this year on the condition
of aged persons discharged from hospital and these have been of
considerable help to health visitors in making the follow-up home visits.
In the field of mental health a worth while experiment resulted from a
talk given in March 1958 by Dr. J. C. Sawle-Thomas, Regional Psychiatrist
to the North East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board and Consultant
65