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DIVISION 3, comprising the boroughs of Finsbury, Holborn and Islington
Dr. W. G. Harding reports:
Maternity services—During 1964 a series of meetings of liaison committees were held
under the auspices of the North East and North West Metropolitan Regional Hospital
Boards. Senior officers represented the Council and agreement was reached on comprehensive
maternity catchment areas served by a number of hospitals. This resulted in part of
South East Islington being transferred, for this purpose, from the North West to the
North East Board's area, with a consequent re-arrangement of the system for referring
maternity patients to hospital.
Arrangements for planned early discharge from hospital for suitable maternity cases
operated throughout the division by the end of the year.
Handicapped and Risk Registers—The total number of children under five years old on
the handicapped register at the end of 1964 was 274 and on the ' at risk' register 2,033.
This scheme is now being extended to include school children over five years of age.
Day nurseries—The increasing demands for day nursery places made it necessary to
continue the exclusion of all the less urgent priority cases and to accommodate, where
possible, children living near the boundaries in day nurseries in the two adjoining divisions.
During the year approval was given to the provision of a second new 50-place day nursery.
Health education—Approval was given to the continuation of the smoking advisory
evening clinic sessions at East Islington welfare centre.
A dental health campaign was carried out in the Autumn school term in co-operation
with heads of local schools and officers of the Education department and the local Dental
Committee. Two ' Dental Health Weeks ' in October and November served as foci of the
campaign, when the preliminary build up was intensified by film shows and talks on dental
health subjects in schools and a special exhibition at Barnsbury welfare centre. The assistance
of local authorities and organisations, doctors and dentists was obtained in distributing
publicity material during this phase of the campaign.
Infectious disease—It was noted that a very low number of infectious disease notifications
was being received from many schools; head teachers throughout the division were therefore
reminded of the importance of notifying every case of infectious disease occurring in
their pupils. This resulted in about double the number of notifications being received and
enabled the divisional health services to take prompt action where necessary.
Prophylaxis—Approval was given in January to participation, in association with the
Institute of Child Health, in a field trial of a new measles vaccine to be given intra-muscularly
in one dose, without gamma-globulin. The trial continued throughout the year.
In September another measles vaccine trial was begun in association with the Medical
Research Council with the two-fold purpose of:
(a) confirming the findings of small scale trials about the absence of significant vaccination
reactions; and
(,b) assessing the degree and duration of protection against measles after vaccination.
Under this scheme parents of all children born in 1963 living in Islington and Finsbury
were invited to register their children for vaccination; 1,700 out of some 6,000 children at
risk were registered and allocated at random to vaccine or control groups. Vaccinations
were carried out during October and November; follow-up investigations will take place at
intervals of three weeks, three, six and nine months.
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