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8
suited to individual knowledge and experience. It obviates, for
instance, the need for an experienced S.R.N, to undertake routine
blanket bathing and it also has other advantages. Within this
group organisation we can and do arrange for individual nurses
to liaise with individual doctors but again, as in the case of health
visitors, not to the extent of a full-time attachment. For some
years, our Home Nursing Service has been moving towards this
form of organisation which was finally settled in 1969. It should
be said that it is still somewhat in its formative period but already
it has proved its worth and seems a much more sensible method
from the point of view of economical use of staff and productivity
than the individual attachment of a highly qualified nurse to one
particular practice, which presumably would mean her performing
some quite elementary and relatively unskilled tasks which can
equally well be delegated to less skilled and less experienced
personnel.
This approach, of course, does not mean that full scale attachment
in certain circumstances has not a good deal to commend it.
There are many advantages in such attachment, particularly in
those rural or semi-rural areas where one nurse may cover the
duties of home nurse, health visitor and even possibly midwife
over a circumscribed area served perhaps by only one family
doctor, but in highly built-up areas like Wandsworth it would seem
that our ideas are the more rational.
Among the most encouraging and satisfactory features of the
modern outlook on mental disorder are the new ideas about the
education and training of the mentally handicapped. It is becoming
accepted that a great deal more can be achieved by way of
education, albeit of an elementary type, and of training of the
mentally handicapped than was formerly thought to be the case,
The Social Services Committee had already agreed that the balance
of advantage to the junior mentally handicapped trainees would
follow the transfer of Junior Training Schools to the Education
Authority, where the full range of educational expertise would be
available. In fact, in our Wandsworth Junior Training School in
Spencer Park "modern" methods have been in use for some
time and there is no doubt that excellent results and work are
being seen. In our Adult Training Centres, steps were taken to
improve the educational and training facilities and discussions took
place with the local Divisional Education Officer with a view to
obtaining the services of part-time specialist teachers to help in
instruction on music, physical activities and art. In a service such
as this, the results achieved are in relation to the quality of staff,
their training, experience and dedication, but modern and convenient
buildings also play an important part. It was, therefore,
with considerable satisfaction that we were able to obtain premises
in Battersea to which to transfer one of our Adult Training Centres.
When it was found that this building could be made available and
that at a modest cost it could be adapted for use as a Training