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About 8½% of all new-born babies are placed on the register
soon after discharge from hospital. This includes babies born
with malformations, abnormalities, a family history of illness,
neonatal disease or a history with a possible relevance to future
handicap. In 1970, out of a total of 4,975 live births, 428 were
placed on the register before the age of three months; approximately
one-third of these babies had some significant congenital
malformation noticeable at birth. In addition to those placed on
the register soon after birth, children who acquire a handicap later
on or whose handicap is detected in the course of time are added
to the register and followed-up in the same way. Reports are
received from hospital consultants, general practitioners, midwives.
health visitors and, perhaps most commonly, from doctors working
in the Borough child health clinics. Medical officers have
become increasingly alert to abnormal patterns of development in
both the physical and the psychological fields. All children on the
register are examined regularly for defects and developmental
screening tests are carried out periodically. The completeness of
the register depends on co-operative effort. Throughout the year
the collaboration of all concerned, that is, clinic doctors, hospital
specialists, general practitioners and others, has been excellent
and the exchange of information has made it possible to follow-up
handicapped children in the Borough on a selective basis. Many
of the children who are under the supervision of the Social Services
Department are also placed on the register for, even when not
handicapped physically or mentally, they may be considered to be
socially deprived and at risk of being disturbed emotionally.
The Handicap and Observation Register continues to provide
the necessary information for all those who are concerned with the
rehabilitation of the physically and mentally handicapped and in
the prevention of further complications of the existing handicaps.
Such information has proved helpful in relation to research projects
concerning, for example, spina bifida, haemophilia, and fibrocystic
disease of the pancreas.
A number of visitors from Eastern Europe and Scandinavian
countries, visiting this country under the sponsorship of the World
Health Organisation, have commented on the value of the selective
follow-up of vulnerable children in the United Kingdom which
they regard as one of the most advanced features of our National
Health Service.