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46
Providing
Day
Nurseries
and
Creches
Arrangements with the six voluntary associations providing day nursery
facilities continued satisfactorily during the year and were subject to the general
review undertaken before the agreements expired. Applications for financial
assistance towards the maintenance cost of providing day nursery and creche facilities
were received from a further two voluntary bodies, and negotiations were still proceeding
at the end of the year.
The Hampstead Health Institute, a trust providing accommodation for some
of the Council's health activities as well as for other benevolent purposes under a
scheme approved by the Charity Commissioners, applied to the Council for
financial assistance in view of increasing costs and diminishing income. The
Council negotiated a new tenancy agreement with the Institute at an increased rent
and took over direct responsibility for the administration of the health services
concerned.
Considerable use was made by the Council of the facilities available at the
Mothercraft Training Society, Highgate Hill, and the Violet Melchett Infant
Welfare Centre, Chelsea, for the in-patient treatment of mothers and babies
experiencing breast-feeding difficulties and of babies with dietetic upsets. Both
organisations are assisted financially by the Council, and patients recommended for
admission pay at an agreed rate. Children under 6 months old accompanied by their
mothers are admitted free.
Providing
other Health
Services
Providing
residential
accommodation
Clinics
Variations in the attendances at sessions of different types held in the maternity
and child welfare centres are shown in the table on page 44. The areas served by
the various centres are now more clearly defined, and it is to the advantage of
mothers and children to attend the appropriate centre, so that contact with the
health visitor of their area can be maintained. There is, however, freedom of choice
as to which centre is attended. Where areas served, for example, by municipal
centres and hospital centres have overlapped, agreement with the hospital
authorities has been sought to adjustments to eliminate duplication of service.
Clinic medical officers, many of whom are general practitioners holding parttime
appointments with the Council, have, where possible, been allocated according
to preference, to infant welfare or ante-natal and post-natal work.
Every expectant mother attending the Council's ante-natal clinics for the first
time can now have a specimen of her blood taken in order that tests may be made
for the Rhesus factor and the Wassermann reaction. Arrangements have been
made with the metropolitan regional hospital boards and the boards of governors
of teaching hospitals for the necessary laboratory services, including those needed
in connection with outbreaks or suspected outbreaks of acute infectious disease, to
be carried out in the boards' laboratories free of charge to the Council until such
time as these services can be made available by the public health laboratory service.
Arrangements with private laboratories which existed in some areas have been
terminated.
Pregnancy diagnosis tests have been carried out for the Council since 1st April,
1949, at the Ministry of Health's laboratory in Shrodell's Hospital, Watford. Two
hospitals in London which were doing this work for metropolitan borough councils
before the "appointed day" have continued to provide the service for the
Council.
The Family Planning Association continued to hold clinics in premises transferred
to the Council under the National Health Service Act, and some extension of
the facilities has been necessary. A payment of 12s. 6d. is made for every woman
referred by the Council's medical staff ; 614 cases were so referred during the period
5th July, 1948, to 31st December, 1949.
Tests
Family
Planning