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87
Family planning
This key service continued to develop steadily in 1972 and
Wandsworth remains one of the leading local health authorities
in this field.
Throughout the year excellent communications have been
enjoyed with hospital consultants, general practitioners and
the neighbouring boroughs of Merton, Richmond and Lambeth.
As in previous years, the South-West London Sranch of the
Family Planning Association has acted as the agent of the
Council in operating the clinics held in our maternal and child
health centres and on hospital premises. There is no charge for
consultation or medical supplies for patients recommended on
medical grounds and patients referred on social grounds pay
only for supplies although in cases of economic difficulty
supplies may be given free of charge.
The further expansion of the service in 1972 comprised three
new weekly sessions, namely, at the Stormont and Doddington
Child Health Centres and - a particularly welcome development
at St.George's Hospital, Tooting. These augmented the eighteen
sessions already held each week in Wandsworth - thirteen at our
maternal and child health centres and five in a hospital setting
(at StJames', Balham, and Queen Mary's, Roehampton). Oral
contraceptives remain the most popular form of birth control
prescribed.
In addition, during the summer, the Council decided to meet
on the basis already mentioned in relation to the Family Planning
Association the charges for Wandsworth residents who attended
Brook Advisory Centres (all located outside the Borough) to
obtain advice on birth control. Accordingly per capita payments
were made in relation to the 246 patients who in the last half of
1972 attended these centres, which cater particularly for young
people.
So far as the service within the Borough was concerned, 4,109
new patients were seen in the course of the year, a very appreciable
increase on the comparable figure in 1971 (3,336). The
total attendances increased similarly from 20,318 in 1971 to
23,935 in 1972. The increase in the number of new domiciliary
patients from 154 to 192 was equally impressive; at the end of
the year 424 patients were receiving service at home compared
with 374 twelve months previously. This indispensable domiciliary
family planning service is fully comprehensive, free of