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(a) Short informal talks by health visitors to mothers and at the larger and better
equipped centres, weekly mothercraft classes; (b) cookery and needlework classes,
conducted by an evening institute instructor; (c) divisional files of posters and
pamphlets, kept up to date by central office; (d) at larger centres, displays of (e.g.,)
infant layette and model garments, bathing and needlework equipment, play
equipment, etc.; (e) a lending library at the centre or by arrangement with the
municipal libraries; (f) parents' clubs at a few centres in some divisions; (g)
voluntary workers who, among other duties, look after children while their mothers
are at classes, etc.
Film shows are arranged on request. Film-strip projectors have been provided for
general use on the basis of one for each division, with a small reserve for issue to divisions
requiring a second apparatus on certain occasions, and a small pool of epidiascopes.
Information on suitable films and film-strips is already provided. Unfortunately there are
few film-strips suitable and available for health education at welfare centres and divisions
are being encouraged therefore to co-operate in the making of film-strips by inviting
divisional staff who show special interest to attend one of the courses on this subject
arranged for teachers by the education officer. Health visitors qualifying from 1950
onwards receive instruction in teaching methods, including the use of film-strip projectors
and epidiascopes, as part of their basic training and arrangements are being made
for selected health visitors from among those trained before 1950 to attend special
courses in these subjects. Most divisions have designated an officer (usually an assistant
divisional nursing officer) to deal with health education as part of her normal duties.
The present staffing position does not make it possible to adopt a suggestion that a
health visitor should be detailed to deal solely with educational activities.
There remained a number of proposals for development or expansion which
divisional medical officers wished to carry out. Some of these could be put into effect
by administrative action, e.g., :
(i) improvement of standard of decoration, lighting and hygiene at welfare
centres, as these are considered to be important factors in health education ;
(ii) extension of mothercraft classes at the larger and better equipped centres to
which mothers normally attending smaller centres or at church halls can be invited ;
(iii) mothers themselves to be invited to participate in health education sessions
or discussion groups and to be encouraged to set up 'good neighbour' movements
whereby efficient mothers can help others in practising the technique taught at the
centres.
Approval has been given generally to the lines of development of educational
activities at maternity and child welfare centres set out above and the question of their
detailed application referred to the Divisional Health Committees.
Prevention of
accidents in
the home
Much attention has been paid in recent years to the prevention of accidents in the
home and a public health departmental working party which had assistance from members
of other departments of the Council, from a medical officer of the Ministry of Health
and from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has studied the problem.
At the instance of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Leslie Banks, Professor of Human Ecology
at the University of Cambridge, is initiating an inquiry into the causes of sudden death
in infants which are usually classed under the heading of suffocation, and the Council has
agreed that the health visitors shall supply details of home circumstances where these
accidents occur.
Accidents in the home are not notifiable and there is no exact information available
of non-fatal accidents, but the cost of hospital treatment of accidents in the home in
1949 was estimated at between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000, of which £1,000,000 was
due to in-patient treatment of burns and scalds. These figures take no account of the
indirect cost to the community through absence from work, provision of sickness
benefit and financial relief, or through the allocation by local health authorities of
health visitors, home nurses and home helps to such cases.