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Personal hygiene scheme
For the purpose of assisting at medical inspections, each school nurse is allocated
to a group of schools. Each school in the group is also visited by the school nurse
on a rota, in order that she can carry out the inspection of the personal hygiene of
the children. At each rota visit all the children in the school are so inspected ;
each school is visited at least once a term, the schools where conditions are below
normal receiving two or more such rota visits each term. Thus every child is seen
at least three times a year.
In 1936, 1,796,323 examinations of children were made at these rota visits;
170,000 more than in 1935. In 144,965 cases the child was noted as verminous, i.e.,
in 8.1 per cent, of the examinations, compared with 8.6 for 1935 and for 1934.
In accordance with the desire of the Board of Education, arrangements were
made in 1933, by means of a small index card, to determine the number of individual
children found unclean during the year, thus eliminating the possibility of counting
separately the second or third record of uncleanliness in respect of any one child.
The number of individual children so recorded was 85,300 (compared with 79,557
in 1935, and 83,207 in 1934), figures which represent all those children who were
noted to be infested with live vermin or their ova. About 52 per cent, of the cases
in which verminous conditions were recorded at the rota visits are stated to be
infested with nits only.
There are 10 Council centres for cleansing, 20 Borough Council centres, and 9
centres organised by voluntary committees ; but, as the last named are limited to head
cleansings, these are not equipped with sterilisers or baths.
The following particulars for 1935 and 1936 are in respect of the cleansing
scheme operated from the Council's and Borough Councils' centres (as distinct from
the "head" cleansing centres)-
1935 1936
Number of advice cards issued to parents from bathing centres 80,682 84,116
Number of children attending voluntarily at bathing centres after
advice cards 41,603 44,583
Number of statutory notices served in accordance with section 87
of the Education Act, 1921 20,513 20,716
Number attending bathing centres after statutory notices:—
(a) voluntarily 4,565 4,726
(b) compulsorily 14,661 15,641
Number of cases in which police court proceedings were taken 321 300
At the head cleansing centres 22,138 children attended during the year compared
with 24,390 in 1935.
The figures in the above tabular statement are obtained from records kept on a
terminal basis at each of the centres, and, as is the case with the rota inspection figures,
a child may be recorded more than once in the same year. The individual record
cards at the centres show that in 1936 a total of 66,464 children attended the bathing
and head cleansing centres. Not all these children were, however, referred under
various stages of the cleansing scheme, but a certain number attended voluntarily
before their departure for the residential schools, country holidays, etc., or at the
request of parents, teachers and others.
Children taken for compulsory cleansing are either accompanied to the centre
by the school nurse or, in the case of outlying schools, taken by ambulances.
In 1936, 12,284 children were conveyed in the ambulances.