London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
London County Council 1949
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for London County Council]
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105
Maternity and Child Welfare Dental Service
The number of maternity and child welfare dental sessions in operation per week
at the end of 1949 was seventy compared with sixty-eight at the end of 1948.
The state of this service would have been much worse but for the fact that
forty-two sessions were taken from school-work by the transference of school
Dental Officers in order to bolster up the almost collapsed maternity and child
welfare service, as during 1949, eleven out of 23 part-time dental surgeons engaged
on maternity and child welfare duties resigned. Owing to the inadequate staffing
of the Council's dental service, an unknown volume of dental treatment for expectant
and nursing mothers (Part III service) continued during 1949 to be carried out
by the dental surgeons in the hospitals (Part II service) transferred from the Council
to the Metropolitan Regional Hospital Boards in 1948 and many mothers, no doubt,
obtained treatment under the Part IV (General Dental Service) Scheme.
Dentures for maternity and child welfare patients continued in some centres,
as pre-5th July, 1948, to be made in private laboratories on a piece-rate payment
basis, but in 1949, whenever possible, their production was transferred to the
Council's laboratories.
A tabulation of attendance and treatment figures for the year is given below with comparative figures (where available) for 1948.
| 1948 | 1949 | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Ordinary Sessions | 4.982‡ | 2,682 |
| Number of General Anaesthetic Sessions | 288‡ | 364 |
| Number of appointments offered | * | 31,338 |
| Failed to attend | * | 6,477 |
| Attended— By appointment | 36,710 | 24,861 |
| Others | 5,392 | |
| Examinations | * | 12,057 |
| Treated— First treatment | 10,959 | 7,032 |
| Others | * | 13,447 |
| Silver Nitrate Treatment | 416 | 2,938 |
| Scalings | 1,324 | 1,364 |
| Prolonged Gum Treatment | 135 | 212 |
| Fillings | 8,549 | 8,564 |
| Inlays | * | 23 |
| Crowns | 1 | 5 |
| Number of Teeth Conserved | * | 7,988 |
| Extractions | 17,355 | 16,560 |
| Dressings | 598 | 2,236 |
| Anaesthetics — Local | 349 | 1,784 |
| General | 3,645 | 4,563 |
| Number of Patients prepared for dentures | * | 3,359 |
| Number of Patients supplied with upper or lower dentures | * | 960 |
| Dentures supplied — New Full (upper or lower) | 2,176 | 652 |
| New Partial | 775 | |
| Remakes | 8 | 7 |
| Repairs | 235 | 126 |
| Number of Patients X-rayed | * | 56 |
| Number made dentally fit | * | 5,283 |
^Includes sessions at which attendances, not included in the analysis, were made by other than maternity and
child welfare patients.
•Not available; mainly because of variations in record keeping by the metropolitan borough council dental clinics
prior to July, 1948.
It may be observed that the dental examination and treatment for which the
Council is responsible was reduced under nearly all headings during 1949 and a
report on the parlous state of their Priority Dental Service was presented to the
appropriate Committees towards the end of the year. The concluding sentence of
that report stated, "unless some method of remuneration is agreed upon for
all three branches (i.e. General, Hospital and Local Health Authority) which gives
approximately the same reward for the same amount of work it is unlikely that
the local health authority Priority Dental Service will improve but will continue to
disintegrate."