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60
Out-Patients
Work was carried on up to the closure both at Mill Hill and at the associated
northern clinics.

Apart from treatment, teaching and research were carried on up to the closure.
Teaching included post-graduate and under-graduate medical courses, the training of
psychiatric social workers, training of nurses, sick berth attendants, physical training
instructors and other ancillaries.
Research was mainly in the psychological and social fields: the work done
has been taken up widely in its practical implications.
Neurosis
Centre,
Southern
hospital,
Dartford
In May, 1945, medical, nursing and ancillary staff were sent from Mill Hill
Emergency hospital to the Southern hospital, Dartford, to prepare for the admission
of neurotic prisoners of war requiring hospital treatment. Seven separate blocks,
each containing fifty beds, were used for the purpose. Treatment measures developed
at Mill Hill during the five years of war were continued, and several trends of treatment
were developed further.
Most of the men received at the Centre had been segregated in prison camps for
up to five years and lacked confidence in their ability to mix socially and to succeed
in some job in civilian life. To help counter this it was decided to try to enlist the
help of the industrial concerns in Dartford. The response was remarkable, and
eventually over fifty employers were actively helping. Three buses conveyed the
men to work morning and afternoon for two-hour periods. The men were not paid
and were employed on skilled work only if they were tradesmen; generally they
helped in an unskilled capacity. They did, however, get some experience of the
nature and conditions of work in a particular trade and were in contact with healthy
workmen, who welcomed them and made them feel that they "belonged." The
occupations ranged from big engineering firms to small shops, and were a good crosssection
of the employments in a small industrial town. Change of occupation, if
desired, was allowed once a week, and the patients were visited at work frequently by
both the vocational psychologist and a nurse, who was employed full-time as a liaison
between psychiatrist and employer.
It was of enormous importance to ensure that the patients on return to civil
life should have suitable work available for them and to avoid as far as possible any
danger of failure, which in these cases might have led to a chronic neurosis. If the
patient had a trade or occupation to which he intended to return after release from the
Army, he was placed, so far as this was possible, in a similar occupation. If he did
not wish to continue his pre-war occupation, or had no definite trade or occupation
to return to, he was referred to the vocational psychologist, who applied appropriate
tests and recommended work-therapy on the basis of the man's own preference,
aptitude and intelligence. The psychologist took a close interest in the various
employments available to the patients, and the limited use of vocational tests was
greatly enhanced by his frequent visits to the men while they were actually at work ;
frequent change of employment was recommended if this seemed to be indicated.
The Centre was very fortunate in having the full-time services of a disablement
rehabilitation officer of the Ministry of Labour. Patients who were likely to be