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SECTION IX. —MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE ARRANGEMENTS
The Medical Officer of Health is the Administrative Maternity and Child Welfare
Officer, and the immediate supervision of the work is undertaken by the Deputy Medical
Officer of Health.
The Borough is divided into seven Welfare Districts.
One of these, Ward 7, has been allocated to the University College Hospital Welfare
Department. This Centre is staffed by Hospital Officers and supervised by the Council's
Maternity and Child Welfare Officer as part of the Borough's scheme.
Kentish Town district has a new Centre in Raglan Street. This is in place of the one
formerly housed in Caversham Road. It has no Voluntary Committee and is managed directly
by the Council's officers. This Centre has its own Superintendent and Health Visitors.
The other five districts continue to function as before each with its own Centre,
Superintendent, Health Visitors, Voluntary Workers and Voluntary Committee. The welfare
movement of to-day owes its existence in a great measure to good work of these committees.
They started the Centres in the pioneering days when neither the Borough Council nor the
Ministry gave an}' financial support. They have carried on the work to its present advanced
state. St. Pancras can claim a special distinction in that the St. Pancras School for Mothers,
now in its 32nd year, was the first Welfare Centre in its modern conception to be established
in this country. This Centre is still attended by students of the movement from all
over the world.
The superintendents and health visitors at the Centres other than the one at the
Hospital are salaried officers of the Borough Council and, while working in close co-operation
with the voluntary committees (where they exist), are under administrative supervision from
the Town Hall.
Co-operation between the Voluntary Committees and the Council is maintained by
the Maternity and Child Welfare (Advisory) Sub-Committee. Representatives of the
voluntary committees and of the Public Health Committee of the Council serve on this
advisory sub-committee, and to it are referred for consideration and report matters affecting
maternity and child welfare work in the Borough as a whole.
In addition to these seven Welfare Centres there are a number of other associations
that render valuable ancillary services in connection with the Council's Maternity and
Child Welfare scheme.
Detailed information as to the work carried out at the different centres, ancillary
services rendered by other associations, and as to the financial contributions made by the
Borough Council, will be given later in this section, and refers only to those services to which
the Council make a contribution.
Table I.
Statistical information is given below in the form required by the Ministry of Health.
[The following Centres in the Borough are not included in the table for the reason that grant is not paid by
the Borough Council:—Royal Free Hospital and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital.
1.—Population of the area served by the Council, Registrar General's estimate for
Midsummer, 1938—179,400.