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Day
nurseries
cases, it was possible to arrange for domiciliary treatment out of funds provided by a
local charity and administered by the North London District Nursing Association.
The war-time day nurseries at Banner Street, Finsbury, (50 places), and at Windsor
Street, Islington (68 places), were closed in December.
In order to ensure that all children in the first priority groups could be accommodated,
children in the third priority groups were discharged during the three months prior to
the closures, and new admissions to day nurseries in the division were restricted for three
months to cases of extreme urgency. In fact, during this period the numbers of new
applications in the first and second priority groups did not keep pace with the withdrawals
and at the end of the year, instead of the remaining five nurseries being filled to
capacity there were some 80 vacancies ; it was not necessary to discharge any children
in the second priority groups and normal admission procedure was resumed.
At the end of the year there were 295 approved places in five day-nurseries compared
with 406 approved places in seven nurseries at the beginning of the year. In addition
the voluntary grant-aided day-nursery, The Kingsway Creche, continued to provide
50 approved places.
Problem
families
In July, 1957, it was decided to make co-ordinating procedure rather more elastic
by instituting ' field ' and ' intermediate ' case conferences at somewhat lower levels than
that of the divisional co-ordinating committee, leaving the latter to meet approximately
monthly to review particularly difficult cases, receive progress reports and to co-ordinate
policy and services within the division.
In October the Co-ordinating Committee was charged with the allocation of a
small number of houses to problem families whose adverse housing conditions were
considered to constitute a major factor. The risk inherent in the transfer of a ' socially
vulnerable ' family into a strange environment and possibly out of reach of a case
worker who had established a link of confidence, enforced a very cautious approach
and called for the closest possible contact between the old and the new case worker.
Research
During the year we gladly provided, with the support of headmasters and daynursery
matrons facilities for Dr. Mary Sheridan, of the Ministry of Health, to try out
some of her screening tests for assessing hearing and vision defects in young children.
Dr. Steel tested 100 children aged five with the vision chart recently devised by Dr.
Piguire and Dr. Sheridan* and found that it produced most useful information.
DIVISION 4, comprising the boroughs of Hackney, Shoreditch and Stoke
Newington.
Dr. S. King reports :
Woodberry
Down
health
centre
The services provided at the health centre have been maintained during the year
and in certain cases increases have been possible :
General medical— 5 additional weekly sessions.
General dental —11 additional weekly sessions.
Child Guidance— 4 additional weekly sessions.
Speech therapy — 2 additional weekly sessions.
The increase in dental sessions arises from the appointment of a second dental officer
in May, 1957, while the appointment in September, 1957, of an additional psychiatrist
doubled the number of child guidance sessions held. The pathological service is now
available to general practitioners within a two mile radius from the health centre instead
of the one mile radius hitherto.
A regular weekly session for inoculation against poliomyelitis was established during
the year.
The total number of sessions held each week had increased to 241 by the end of the
year with an average weekly attendance of 2,138 persons. Of these 52 were general
medical sessions (average attendance 532) and 22 were general dental sessions (average
attendance 152).
* ' Medical Officer' 98, 53-55, 1957.
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