View report page

100
work so far-reaching, for the head teachers of school departments wield an influence
which extends far beyond the boundaries of the school walls, and when this influence
is exerted in enthusiastic furtherance of the school medical work, no bounds can be
assigned to its success, as is seen in the story of medical following-up at St. James (B.)
school, Thurland Road, Bermondsey, told in a previous section.
Attendance
Officers.
The habit of school attendance is now thoroughly ingrained. The work of
the school attendance department becomes yearly more and more a branch of general
social service. In the annual "scheduling," when homes are systematically visited
and a census of all children taken, the attendance officers note all abnormal children,
and pay special attention to those under school age. In particular they make
special enquiry for all crippled children, however young; lists of these are furnished
to the school medical department and all such children are thereby brought under
the notice of the appropriate agency for following-up. Children who are chronically
absent from school are presented when necessary for medical examination.
Expedited reports are made in cases of rheumatism, tuberculosis of bones and
joints, poliomyelitis, etc., to ensure that they are considered in connection with
the various schemes for residential treatment. Special officers in the attendance
departments assist the school care committees in following-up difficult cases of general
neglect or neglect to obtain medical treatment. During the prevalence of measles
preferential visits are made to the homes of younger children absent from infants'
departments with a view of ascertaining the existence of measles and thereby giving
the local medical officers early information where otherwise it would be lacking.
The attendance officers serve the statutory notices in all cases where it is necessary
to proceed on account of verminous conditions, and they collect the sums due from
the parents in respect of medical treatment carried out under the Council's scheme.
Voluntary
bodies.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Invalid
Children's Aid Association, the Children's Country Holiday Fund, the Save the
Children Fund, the Shaftesbury Society, The Junior Red Cross, the London Spectacles
Association and innumerable other societies for social service in London are intimately
associated with the work of the School Medical Service. The definite place in the
scheme which the N.S.P.C.C. fills has been detailed in the Section on "Following-up."
The I.C.A.A. undertakes the supervision of all crippled children, procures convalescence
for ailing children, and this year has entered into still closer relationship with
the service in relation to the treatment and supervision of rheumatic children. The
work of other societies and associations has been mentioned in various earlier sections.
Voluntary
hospitals.
The remarkable appreciation increasingly shown by the authorities of the great
voluntary hospitals of the Council's organisation of social services is demonstrated
by the eagerness with which many demand the allocation to their out-patient
departments of the Council's organisers who serve as the links between the activities
of the hospital physician and surgeons and the social service in the homes and schools
carried out by the voluntary care committee workers. The remarkable results of
this association and co-ordination of effort will be gathered from the following detailed
reports.
Report of
L.C.C. work
at Guy's
hospital
during 1927.
The assistant organisers of children s care committees have been working during
the year in the orthopaedic, aural, skin, and eye department of the hospital as
formerly. This "following-up" work is in connection with the care committees of
London's elementary schools, and its object is to try to ensure regular attendance of
those children who come to hospital for treatment, to see that the doctors' instructions
are as far as possible carried out, and to form a link between the hospital and the
school doctors.
The number of children attending in the orthopaedic department is much the
same as last year—about 498 children are coming at regular intervals for supervision
and treatment, and many of these are also referred for massage and remedial exercises,
and attend in the massage department very well on the whole. In the aural