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100
Child health centres
The Doddington Child Health Centre, 311 Battersea Park Road,
S.W.11 , opened on 1st February. This is a purpose-built centre
within the Doddington Estate housing complex and, in addition to
providing a wide range of health services for residents of all ages,
it serves as a base from which health visitors, school nurses and
clinic nurses work. Home nurses working in the area use the
centre as a daily meeting place. All sessions formerly held at
Welcome Hall Centre nearby were transferred to the new centre
and the former health visitors' office at 10 Cambridge Road was
closed. The new premises are also used by the Social Services
Department, the League of Friends of the future Bridge Lane
Health Centre, and by the Wandsworth Council for Community
Relations.
To improve and extend the service, investigations were undertaken
during the year to assess the feasibility of extending the
accommodation at Tooting and Chatham Hall Child Health Centres.
Evening child health sessions are held at Balham and Tooting
Child Health Centres and have proved very successful.
Discussions are now taking place concerning the provision of
evening clinics at other centres as the number of women in fulltime
employment continues to increase steadily. In addition,
consideration is being given to the possibility of holding
relaxation and mothercraft classes in the evenings.

Occasional creches
The occasional creches continue to be exceedingly popular,
and the demand for admission is very heavy. As the provision
of playgroups increases in the borough to cater for all children
needing such facilities, so will the creches be used more
selectively in relation to the activities of the clinics. The
recruitment of staff continues to be a problem and it is of much
concern that, in employing trained playgroup personnel, we may
be depriving playgroups who serve a greater number of children
of valuable staff members.