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48
Group
practice
accommodation
It is still the Council's policy to assist general practitioners, wherever practicable,
to establish group practices, and two schemes have recently been approved whereby
specially designed ground floor accommodation in blocks of flats will be leased to
local doctors for group practice purposes. Both schemes envisage the eventual provision
of maternitv and child welfare and school treatment centres in adjoining accommodation.
Diagnostic
medical centre
for general
practitioners
In 1958 the establishment of a diagnostic mcdical centre in purpose designed
accommodation at Queen's Road Centre, Camberwell, in association with the Nuffield
Foundation, the Sir Halley Stewart Trust and the South East Metropolitan Regional
Hospital Board was approved. The services to be provided for the benefit of local general
practitioners will include X-ray and pathological services, a minor operations room,
facilities for dressings and other nursing procedures, accommodation for consultants and
a common room with a library. Redesigned accommodation will also be provided for
the child guidance unit and school specialist clinics at present functioning at the Centre.
Short-term
development
plan
Maternity and child welfare and school treatment centres
The ultimate aim was, and is, to place the maternity and child welfare and school health
services on a firm basis in each health service area in conveniently sited and purpose
designed buildings, nevertheless, it was apparent at the outset that many years would
elapse before these could be built in sufficient numbers to replace the improvised clinic
accommodation to which reference has been made. To safeguard the future of the
service it has, therefore, been necessary to obtain, whenever opportunity arose, the
freehold or leasehold interest in respect of the more satisfactory existing buildings*,
and to carry out works of adaptation and improvement to render them more suitable
for health service use. Steps have also been taken to secure improved alternative
accommodation to enable centres functioning in very unsuitable premises to be closed.
As will be seen in Table (iv), the extent to which the service has to rely on the continued
availability of rented buildings has been substantially reduced during the past ten years.
Progress has also been made in providing new or improved accommodation for
school health purposes and the opportunity has been taken in suitable cases of incorporating
some, or all, of the school health services required for an area in maternity
and child welfare centres so as to achieve fuller integration of the two services. (A
school minor ailment surgery in a new maternity and welfare centre is shown opposite
page 49.)
Provision of
new centres
So far as the provision or new purpose designed welfare centres is concerned,
fuiancial restrictions have, as already indicated, obliged the Council to defer plans for
the erection of replacement buildings and the building of new centres has, of necessity,
been largely confined to those areas where expanding population or the development
of new housing estates has created a new and urgent demand for services. Deficiencies
in existing facilities elsewhere have, in general, been met by the acquisition and conversion
of suitable standing property. (A purpose designed welfare centre is shown in the
photographic inset.)
More recently, because of the difficulties in the way of building new centres, the
Council has approved a number of schemes for the incorporation of purpose designed
clinics and day nurseries in ground floor accommodation in blocks of flats to be erected
on sites originally reserved for health service purposes. Satisfactory arrangements have
also been made for centres to be provided in this way on a number of health service
sites which the Council has agreed to release for housing development by metropolitan
borough councils. Details of completed and proposed schemes for the provision of
centres and nurseries in new housing development are given in Table (v). (Pictures of
a day nursery incorporated in a block of flats are shown opposite.)
Planning
standards
It was decided in 1957 that future maternity and child welfare and school treatment
centres should be planned in accordance with standards which had been devised with
the object of securing maximum economy in building costs consistent with the provision
of properly designed clinic accommodation adequate in all respects to meet the
* Details of acquisitions and leases of health serrice premises completed during 1958 are shown in Table (vi).