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60
Health Visiting Service
This has been a very busy year for all the health visitors with
an increasing shortage of staff from April onwards. This shortage
was partly due to vacancies which we were unable to fill and partly
due to staff being away on maternity leave and one health visitor
having to have special leave for domestic reasons. The six health
visitor students who were sponsored by the Council in September,
1966, all qualified and took up duty as health visitors in September,
1967, and were a very welcome addition to the staff. Unfortunately
we were able to recruit only four students this year and these
should be ready to start work in September, 1968.
With limited staff we have had to concentrate our efforts on
essential health visiting duties. All babies born during the year
to mothers resident in Wandsworth were visited. All families with
children under five moving into the area were also visited as soon
as their arrival became known to the health visitor. There is a
great deal of movement in and out of the area and every effort is
made to trace the addresses of those moving out so that the child
health and family records can be forwarded to the receiving area.
Even so quite a large number move away and cannot immediately
be traced.
Families with special problems may need a great deal of help
and may require frequent visits. As far as possible all children
are followed up either by home visiting or at the Child Health
Clinics until they go to school at the age of 5 years. A summary
of the health visitor's record and any available medical records are
then forwarded to the school so as to be available at the child's
first school medical examination.
The number of first visits made during the year to children
under five years of age were :—
Children born in 1967 5,946
Children born in 1966 5,207
Children born in 1962/65 11,730
Visits of all kinds paid by health visitors during the year
totalled :—
Effective visits 55,980
Unsuccessful visits 12,793
Premature Infants
Any child weighing 5£ lb. or less at birth is regarded as premature,
and great care is taken to ensure that adequate help and
advice are available for mothers with premature babies. The