View report page

86
The responsibility for the daily minding, playgroup and private
day nurseries service was passed to the Social Services Department
in October and for one entire week after the handing-over the
Principal Nursing Officer who had previously been engaged fulltime
on this work was available to any member of the Social
Services Department for advice concerning this aspect of work.
During the nine months from January to the beginning of
October, 65 child-minders and two private day nurseries were
registered. A further 39 completed files were passed to the Social
Services Department for the issue of registration certificates.
Adoption and boarding out
The advice of the medical staff continues to be sought in appropriate
cases by the Director of Social Services on health aspects
of children under consideration for adoption ; during the year 24
such cases were submitted. Similar inquiries are made when necessary
in respect of prospective adopters and of children who need
to be boarded-out.
Home help service
This important service was transferred to the newly-created
Social Services Department in April and all the staff concerned
took with them the best wishes of their colleagues in the Health
Department.
Immunisation and vaccination
One of the significant events of the year was the ending of
routine vaccination of young children against smallpox. The Joint
Vaccination and Immunisation Sub-committee of the Central
Health Services Council came to the conclusion that the chances
of the introduction of smallpox into Britain had substantially
diminished and that the public were therefore far less likely to be
exposed to infection with smallpox than at any previous time since
the disease was first recorded in this country. Vaccination continues
to be a safe and reliable method of protection against smallpox
for the vast majority of persons but the number of serious
complications in childhood, though few, is out of proportion to the
risk to them from smallpox in Britain.
Although vaccination against smallpox is not now recommended
as a routine procedure in early childhood it is important that
travellers to and from areas of the world where smallpox is
endemic, or countries where eradication programmes are in progress,
should be protected by recent vaccination. This is equally
true of doctors, nurses, public health inspectors and other health
service staff who may be exposed to the risk of infection in the
course of their work.