View report page

HEALTH VISITING SERVICE
(Section 24)
The main work of the health visitor is still basically the teaching of the
principles of health and well being. Guiding towards health in clinics and homes
is applied to the family as it is needed in consultation with parents or members
of a family or individuals living alone. In those situations where the need is
seen first by the health visitor she uses all her ingenuity and skill to move the
family towards the attainment of health and the desire to achieve it. Listening,
interpreting, counselling, instructing, encouraging, preventing, are some of
the words used to describe the activities of the health visitor with each person
who seeks her help or is sought out by her.
In the wider field, the health visitor has been used by local health departments,
hospitals, the Medical Research Council and other investigators connected
with problems of peri-natal death rates, the health and development of
children and other age groups.
Student Health Visitors have been received for practical experience and
observation visits for three terms during the year. Each is attached to one
health visiting team and arrangements for continuity of visiting a few families
are made. A balanced programme of special experience connected with all
aspects of health visiting including contacts with schools and social agencies
is also provided for them.
A new feature of health visiting in the Area is the extension of the service
to a Group Practice Centre. A health visitor attends the Centre for two sessions
each week. One is a baby welfare session to offer advice and to make a selection
of children to see the doctor for examination or opinion. This procedure
conforms to much the same method as is used in local authority welfare centres.
The second session the health visitor is present to listen to and to give counsel
on various difficulties expressed to herself or the doctors by patients attending
the Centre. Problems connected with the care of the aged and care of the
family during the mother's absence in hospital for confinement or other reasons
are talked over with patients and resolved where it is possible. The statutory
and voluntary services available in the Area are made known, clarified and put
into motion where they can help to overcome difficulties. The health visitor
concerned also collects particulars of any patients for whom the general practitioners
request a home visit. Some of these are dealt with by the health
visitor herself, but those living outside her district are handed on to the health
visitor on whose district the patient lives. This method of co-operation has
not presented any complications.
Mental Health Case Conference
Health visitors presentation to the Case Conferences for health visitors
has continued to be held at monthly intervals during the year. Eighteen cases
were selected for discussion. Several individuals who were the topic of observation
andwere inneed of psychiatric help were subsequently seen b y
Dr. J. C. Sawle-Thomas, Regional Psychiatrist to the North East Metropolitan
Regional Hospital Board and Consultant to the Price of Wales's Hospital. The
68