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Medical Treatment.
The Education (Administrative Provisions) Act of 1908, imposed upon local
education authorities the duty of providing for the medical inspection of school
children, and gave an optional power, since made compulsory, of making arrangements
for the treatment of certain specified ailments.
The augmented inspection work was begun in March, 1909. and it was soon
found that the existing arrangements for treatment were quite inadequate.
The hospitals were overburdened with child patients, and it became evident that
the facilities for treatment must be materially increased. In January, 1910, the
Council made arrangements with seven hospitals for the treatment of some 12,700
children. All the responsibility for treatment was undertaken by the hospital
authorities. No arrangements were made for following up the cases, and the only
information concerning children who had ceased attendance before treatment was
completed was received as an accompaniment of the claim for payment, and was
much too late to be of service.
In February, 1911, arrangements were made at the London Hospital for an
assistant organiser of children's care work to attend the hospital to regulate the
attendance of the children and to supply information to the care committee. The
experiment was so successful that it was extended to cover all the treatment arrangements
of the Council.
Owing to the difficulty of making complete arrangements with the larger
hospitals in London, due mainly to the fact that their organisations were not adapted
to cope with the immense mass of childhood's ailments with which they were overwhelmed,
further means of dealing with the matter were sought. Fortunately, at
this point, with the co-operation of local committees of medical practitioners, it was
possible to inaugurate a system of treatment centres. The first was opened in July,
1910, at Hampstead on the premises of the Kilburn Provident Medical Institute,
followed by a second at Norwood in September of the same year, and a third in
Wandsworth in January, 1911.
In 1912 the medical treatment scheme was reorganised and cast into its present
form—that is to say, that whilst full use is made of the hospitals as far as their
resources will permit, the main bulk of treatment is carried out at school treatment
centres controlled by voluntary committees, much to the advantage of children
living in areas remote from hospitals. Attendances for treatment are regulated
by the Council's organisers of children's care work. Records of the cases treated
are kept at the centres. The care organisation follows up the cases to see that treatment
is completed. In short no means is neglected to secure the effective treatment
of every child needing it, and that there shall be no failure to obtain treatment by
reason of the absence of facilities or by ignorance on the part of parents or guardians.
The passing of the Education Act, 1918, somewhat altered the conception of
the duties of the local authority with regard to treatment. The earlier Act, already
referred to, gave an optional power to make arrangements for the medical treatment