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looking after one or two children who voluntarily register with the Council and
receive a weekly registration fee in return for which they are subject to inspection by
the Council. The numbers of child-minders, both statutorily and voluntarily
registered on 31st December, 1950, together with the number of children looked after,
are given in the following table. The corresponding figures for the previous year
are also shown :—
On 31.12.49 On 31.12.50
Number of child-minders
statutorily registered 73 96
Number of children minded 501 570
Number of child-minders
voluntarily registered 584 766
Number of children minded 579 834
Residential nurseries
The management of the residential nurseries (apart from that at Queen Mary's
Hospital, Carshalton), including the filling of vacancies, is now under the control of
the Children's Officer. The residential nursery at New Cross General Hospital was
closed in March, 1950, and the children transferred elsewhere.
The children in the residential nurseries are under the medical care of the
visiting medical officers, who examine them periodically, as well as on admission and
discharge, and as may be required. Close co-operation is maintained with the
Children's Officer in regard to questions affecting the children's health. With this
in view the residential nurseries are visited at regular and frequent intervals by
senior members of the Council's central medical and nursing staff.
Adoption and boarding-out of children
Special records kept since 1st March, 1950, show that during the last ten months
of the year 517 children were referred to me by the Children's Officer for opinion as
to their suitability on medical grounds for adoption or boarding-out in accordance
with the duties placed upon the Council by the Children Act, 1948. Of these, 119
were found fit for adoption, 390 fit for boarding-out and 8 unfit for various reasons.
The care of unmarried mothers and their children
The Council has continued to have regard to the advice given by the Ministry of
Health in circular 2866/43 " that the most promising line of attack would be that
the welfare authorities should co-operate with and reinforce the work of moral
welfare associations." The welfare authorities referred to were the then maternity
and child welfare authorities, i.e., in London, the metropolitan borough councils,
whose duties in this regard were transferred to the Council in July, 1948. The care
of the unmarried mother and her child is administered by the Council as follows.
Voluntary
homes
Voluntary homes take expectant mothers during the later stages of pregnancy
and for several weeks after confinement. With the exception of two homes, the
mothers are transferred to a hospital for the confinement. The Council as local
health authority has continued to pay grants under section 22 of the National
Health Service Act, 1946, to voluntary organisations maintaining mother and baby
homes. The homes are visited by medical officers of the department at least twice a
year and by sanitary inspectors when any structural alterations to the premises are
necessary. Standards of staffing, space and management which have been recommended
by the Ministry of Health are carefully applied to the running of the homes.
The grants paid are subject to the carrying out by the voluntary bodies of any
improvement suggested by the Council. The homes are registered or exempted from
registration as nursing homes under part XI of the Public Health (London) Act, 1936,
as necessary. Some of the homes are also registered under section 29 of the Children