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CARE OF MOTHERS AND YOUNG CHILDREN
The main features of the Council's services for care of mothers and young children
remained as in previous years. Day-to-day administration of the services is the responsibility
of the nine divisional health committees, and details are given in the reports of the
individual divisional medical officers. Details of changes in centres during the year will be
found in the section on health service premises.
Maternity services committee
The Council decided to adopt the principles laid down in the report of the Maternity
Services (Cranbrook) Committee for improving co-ordination, co-operation and exchange of
information between the three branches of the maternity service.
The Council already provides premises and facilities, without charge, to general practitioner
obstetricians and hospital medical staff holding outlying hospital clinics, and health
education and mothercraft instruction in the Council's clinics has long been available to
the booked maternity patients of general practitioners and general practitioner obstetricians.
There will be the fullest co-operation with hospital authorities in extending
arrangements for following-up mothers who fail to attend hospital ante-natal clinics;
providing health education and mothercraft instruction to expectant mothers booked for
hospital confinement at the Council's clinics or at hospitals; and assessing the home circumstances
of a patient before she is booked for hospital confinement on social grounds.
Officers of the Council will serve on local maternity liaison committees and attend local
clinical meetings and will thus have opportunities of advocating the views and recommendations
of the Cranbrook Committee on such matters as the selection of patients for
domiciliary and for hospital confinement, and the adequate allocation of beds both for
the priority groups and for emergency admissions.
The Council approved in principle the introduction of an appointments system in the
Council's ante-natal clinics where attendances and other considerations justify such
arrangements, and the inclusion of the domiciliary midwifery service in any proposals
which may eventually be agreed by the hospital authorities for the publication of clinical
reports.
Providing no greater difficulty arises in obtaining maternity beds for patients needing
hospital confinement on medical or social grounds and patients remain in hospital for the
normal period of ten days, the Council will make no objection to the proposal for the
provision of general practitioner maternity beds. The Council has urged that hospital
authorities should consult the Council in advance before any general plan for the discharge
of maternity patients before the tenth day is adopted, should notify all routine discharges
of maternity patients from hospitals daily and consult the appropriate officers of the
Council in relation to exceptional cases being discharged before the tenth day.
The Council confirmed the opinion expressed in its evidence to the Cranbrook Committee
that there should be a stricter standard for admission to the general practitioner
obstetrician list and that every general practitioner obstetrician should have as a deputy
another general practitioner obstetrician.
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