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124
Health
visitors
The improvement in the recruitment of health visitors and tuberculosis visitors,
referred to in my last report, was maintained during 1950, though not to such a
significant extent. At the end of the year 346 were employed compared with 330 in
January. The main single source of recruitment continued to be from health
visitors who had obtained their qualification as a result of the training facilities
offered by the Council in conjunction with the King's College of Household and
Social Science.
Dental
surgeons
Recruitment of dental surgeons, which had iallen short ot requirements since
1948, still failed to meet the severe shortage caused by resignations and the staffing of
the Council's priority dental services continued to give rise to deep anxiety.
Holiday
organisers
and assistants
Two new grades of stan, viz., holiday organisers and holiday assistants, were
introduced in 1950. Their duties involve the supervision of children sent for recuperative
holidays at seaside hotels.
Training of
postgraduate
medical
students
Following a new requirement tnat candidates for tne Diploma in Child Health
must "have had not less than 20 attendances at welfare centres and school medical
service clinics, including evidence of having attended at a child guidance clinic,
special schools and residential or day nurseries," an extension was made of the scheme
described in my report for 1949 whereby the Council co-operated with the Institute of
Child Health in the training of postgraduate students. Twice a year, about 60
students from the Institute of Child Health, and twelve from other hospitals for
children, will be making visits to the Council's clinics and other establishments and
attending lectures given by the Council's medical officers.
Co-operation
with borough
councils
There were two noteworthy instances ot progress in implementation ot the policy
of co-operation between the Council and the metropolitan borough councils in the
administration of London's public health services. Two of the Council's assistant
medical officers were seconded for permanent part-time duty as deputy medical
officers of health, the boroughs concerned being in the first case, Finsbury, and in the
second case, Hampstead and St Pancras, who now share a joint medical officer of
health and deputy.
Staff of the
department

(a) These establisnmenls include residential schools and nurseries, welfare establishments, ambulance
stations, occupation centres for mentally defective children, main drainage outfall works, clinics and
dispensaries, district offices (mental health), central dental laboratory, etc.
(b) There are 60 visiting medical officers employed at residential establishments on a part-time
basis whom it is not possible to compute in terms of whole time units of staff. They have, therefore, been
omitted from the table.
(c) There are 8 visiting dental surgeons employed in a similar manner as the medical staff referred to
in note (ft) above who have been omitted from the statement.
(d) Including physiotherapists, chiropodists, speech therapists, orthoptists, dental attendants and
dental hygienists.