View report page

At the end of the year there were 105 school treatment centres, 81 run directly by the
Council and 24 by voluntary committees. The following table shows the number of
clinics available in school treatment centres for the treatment of each defect.
Type of clinic
Minor Ailments 83
†Dental 63
*Vision 41
*Orthoptic 8
*Ear, Nose and Throat 12
Audiology 9
Speech Therapy 35
*Enuresis 1
Special Investigation 15
Nutrition 29
*Rheumatism (Supervisory) 14
School
treatment
centres
†Several of these are ' twin' surgeries.
*Specialists provided in most cases by regional hospital boards.
The co-operation between the London school health service and the hospitals dates
back to the earliest days of the school health service, a Children's Care Organiser being
appointed as long ago as 1911 to the London Hospital to direct the flow of patients
and act as a liaison officer between the care committees and the hospital authorities.
To-day this co-operation takes several forms, in which the children's care organisers
working in the Public Health department play an important role. At some hospitals
special sessions are provided for the treatment of school pupils, and organisers make the
appointments and attend the sessions. At other hospitals the organiser, although not
present at the sessions, undertakes the making of the appointments. At certain other
hospitals the organisers attend to carry out the liaison between the children's out-patient
departments, the specialist clinics, the school health service and the children's care
organisation. Reference has already been made on page 94, to the Council's decision to
hold experiments in the field in connection with the integration of part of the duties of
the organisers with those of the health visitor/school nursing sisters.
Treatment of
school pupils
at hospitals

The total number of attendances of school pupils seen in departments of the hospital
attended by the organisers was 5,332.
The following note has been contributed by Dr. E. E. Gourlay, who has been
responsible for a nutrition centre for the past twenty years:—
'Nutrition centres were started in five centres in London in 1935, because it was
felt that there were many children in the Council's schools who were not up to standard
Nutrition
centres
105