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8
worth and at Brook Advisory Centres (which cater especially for
young people), with effect from the beginning of 1973. Nonresidents
working in the Borough and attending such clinics in
Wandsworth were also to be eligible for this free service.
Cervical cytological screening continues to be a regular
feature of the work of the family planning clinic. This important
activity also flourished during the year at the eight cervical
cytology clinics provided for the general public by the Council,
an average number of seven patients being seen at each session.
Of the 2,409 women examined (including 71 at a local factory)
approximately four in every thousand were found to have a
positive cervical smear and nearly one-third of all those
attending these screening clinics had some minor but troublesome
local abnormality or infection requiring attention. The outstanding
features in this sphere in 1972 were the introduction at the
beginning of the year of the National Recall Scheme for Routine
Cervical Cytology; the commencement in February of two early
evening clinics at Tooting and Victoria Drive respectively for the
general public; and the use in the autumn of a mobile cervical
cytology unit kindly loaned by the Women's National Cancer
Control Campaign. Full details of these new developments are
given in Part 4 of the Report but it is worth emphasizing in
relation to the latter project the vaiuable information gained
concerning the effectiveness of the various publicity media
available and of the potential contribution of voluntary effort in
this field. Finally, another piece of useful research which
continued during the year concerned the asymptomatic bacteriuria
survey undertaken at both family planning and cervical cytological
screening clinics in Wandsworth in association with the Department
of Medicine of Charing Cross Hospital. In the first fifteen
months of the project seven of the 743 women volunteering to be
screened were found to have a significant abnormality of the
renal tract, constituting just over one-fifth of the 30 women in
whom symptomless urinary infections were detected. A final
assessment of the value of this screening venture was awaited
at the end of the year.
Maternal and child health services, including the family
planning, cervical cytology and immunization activities already
mentioned, are provided by the local health authority in support
of the general practitioner who is a key figure in all these
fields. In the sphere of midwifery 92 confinements — five more
than in 1971 — in the general practitioner obstetric unit at the
Weir Maternity Hospital were attended by Wandsworth midwives.
Not unexpectedly the number of home midwifery confinements fell