View report page

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.
Today 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.
Treatment
of school
pupils at
hospitals

* Spectacles either obtained or not needed.
t Not available.
The total number of attendances of school-pupils seen in departments of the hospital
attended by the organisers was 5,055.
Ministry of Education returns call tor inrormation on all treatment known to have
been provided, whether by the Council or otherwise. Such statistics are necessarily
incomplete, since no figures are available from general medical and dental practitioners,
opticians or from the many hospitals that have no direct link with the Council's
organisers. Even at some of the co-operating hospitals, the medical records and documentation
adopted by the hospitals, for the purposes of their own returns to the
Ministry of Health, do not enable separate figures for the L.C.C. school-pupils to be
extracted. Care should, therefore, be exercised before attempting to draw conclusions
about the incidence of defects or the extent to which treatment has been obtained,
from the figures that follow :
Treatment
statistics
Type of clinic
1953 1954 1955
*Vision
*Orthoptic
*Ear, Nose and Throat
Audiology
Minor Ailments
Dental
*Rheumatism
Nutrition
Special Investigation
*Enuresis
New cases 35,222 34,420 34,425
Attendances 92,511 94,176 93,082
New cases 1,517 1,410 1,276
Attendances 11,564 11,643 11,200
New cases 6,301 6,439 4,642
Attendances 15,291 15,056 11,826
New cases 1,330 1,153 1,164
Attendances 2,676 2,954 3,299
New cases 169,443 166,173 165,558
Attendances 794,263 757,220 739,923
New cases 116,499 129,712 121,362
Attendances 269,061 300,912 315,750
New cases 959 786 613
Attendances 6,936 5,681 5,003
New cases 1,144 1,090 933
Attendances 10,593 10,594 9,565
New cases 957 904 867
Attendances 4,588 5,626 5,587
New cases 808 592 535
Attendances 4,026 3,466 3,275
*Hospital and specialist services provided by boards of governors or regional hospital boards.
113