View report page

114
Health education
General
Health education forms an integral part of all the services
provided by the Health Department in relation to communication
and persuasion. The aims of the Health Education Service are
to foster, encourage and support these activities, in the most
appropriate way for the service in question.
Without doubt the main means of health education is the
person-to-person contact between health staff and the public.
This involves those in the field, such as health visitors, home
nurses, midwives and public health inspectors and also those
who face the public at reception desks or answer their calls,
when seeking appointments or making general enquiries. The
service of the health department is judged largely by the
experience that people have when coming in contact with it,
so what is needed is for all personnel to be made aware of the
potential of their own role in health education, however small
it may seem.
The more obvious health education activities continue, such
as the Mothers' Clubs, run by health visitors, or mothercraft
lectures by midwives. Displays are put up in the child health
centres and supplies of leaflets and other literature are made
available. Health inspectors give lectures to various groups
in response to invitations. All of these activities are supported
by the provision of appropriate audio-visual aids. The health
education service increased its resources with the much needed
addition of a new 16 m.m. sound projector, a slide projector and
a daylight screen. A big improvement was made to the storage
of leaflets and posters in appropriate filing systems. Despite
the very limited space, room was found for a hanging-type poster
cabinet, making it much easier to examine specimens of available
posters.
In order to make plans, discuss new ideas, review new
materials and facilitate their application, a Health Education
Panel was started in the latter part of the year, with regular
participation of medical, nursing and administrative staff.
Dental health education
The first school dental surgery commenced operating in
Wandsworth in 1912. A photograph taken at that time and which
was published in my Annual Report for 1970 shows group
instruction in oral hygiene. Even before then, and ever since,
group and individual instruction have been given. Exhibitions