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The accompanying memorandum, which has been prepared by the Board's Medical
Officer with a view to assisting the formulation of schemes or extending the work already
undertaken, sets forth in outline the matters needing consideration in the preparation of
a comprehensive scheme. It will be seen that the memorandum contemplates that
medical advice and, where necessary, treatment should be continuously and systematically
available for expectant mothers and for children till they are entered on a school register,
and that arrangements should be made for home visitation throughout this period.
The work of home visitation is one to which the Board attach very great importance
and in promoting schemes on the lines laid down in the accompanying statement the first
step should be the appointment of an adequate staff of Health Visitors.
It will be desirable, at all events in the case of the larger urban authorities, to provide
consultation centres which may fitly be termed Maternity Centres, to which expectant
mothers and mothers with infants and little children may be referred for advice and
treatment; the operation of these Maternity Centres will be rendered most effective if
co-operation is secured with the midwives of the district and with any local hospital
having a maternity department.
It will be necessary to arrange for a medical officer to be in charge of such a Centre
and for the attendance at the Centre of members of the staff engaged in home visiting.
Careful records, for which the medical officer should be responsible, will need to be kept,
and in regard to children the records should be in such a form that they may subsequently
be available for the information of the School Medical Officer when the child is
entered at a school.
For the rural and smaller urban areas the Board think it will generally be found
desirable to develop a county organisation, but in all cases the county work should be
intimately related with that of the local sanitary authority, and on the other hand any
work separately undertaken by a sanitary authority should be co-ordinated with the
county scheme.
It is not expected that all local authorities will be able at once to initiate complete schemes
but it is important that any partial arrangements that may be made shall be such as can
ultimately form part of a more extended organisation.
Subject to the estimate now before Parliament being accepted by Parliament, the
Board will be willing to consider applications for grants in respect of any work falling
within the scope of the scheme outlined in the memorandum accompanying this letter;
the grants will normally amount to one-half the approved expenditure on any of these
purposes, but may be less if the Board so decide.
Grants to institutions of the nature of Schools for Mothers, the object of which is
primarily educational, which provide training and instruction for mothers in the care and
management of infants and little children, and which may include systematic classes, or
home visiting, or infant consultations (the provision of specific medical and surgical
advice and treatment, if any, being only incidental), will be administered by the Board
of Education. Any case of doubt or difficulty will be investigated by a Joint Committee
of Officers of the two Boards, which will include women Medical Officers.
In sending a copy of this circular to voluntary agencies engaged in infant welfare work,
the Board will state that applications for grants in respect of voluntary work may be made
by a voluntary agency either directly or through a local authority.
The grant now presented to Parliament will be appropriated in aid of the expenditure
of the half-year ended 30th September, 1914, and applications for grants should be
accompanied by an account of the work undertaken by the authority and by a detailed
statement of the expenditure incurred, certified by the officer of the local authority in
charge of the accounts.
I am to add that the Board will be happy to afford advice and assistance to local
authorities in the initiation of schemes or the extension of existing schemes.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
The Clerk to the Council.
H. C. Monro,
Secretary.