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and that in general the numbers of children in attendance at nurseries
had begun to fall quite steeply well before increased charges came into
effect.
Nursery and Child Minders Regulation Act. No doubt largely
owing to the excellent day nursery service which you built up there
has never been a large demand for registration under this Act.
In 1953 two women were registered as Child Minders. Only one
took advantage of this registration and had two children in her carc
for part of the year.
MIDWIFERY
For many years domiciliary services in Barking were provided
by midwives from the Plaistow Maternity Hospital and by midwives
practising privately. As the Becontree Estate developed arrangements
were made with the Salvation Army for their midwives to cover part
of the Porter Avenue district, and you took midwives into your direct
employment to serve the remaining areas. The Salvation Army terminated
their agreement in 1947, and the Plaistow midwives withdrew
on the apppointed day." Those municipal midwives who had been
engaged to serve the Upney and Becontree areas were transferred
to the control of the Barking Health Area Sub-Committee, whilst the
area of "old" Barking was taken over by midwives from the County
Training I me at Leytonstone working from the Longbridge Road
Home. It ems a pity that at a time of radical change the opportunity
was missei. f unifying the domiciliary midwifery services in Barking.
I havt already made reference to the fact that a percentage of
domiciliary jnfinements has been steadily falling over the last 20 years,
and that t! trend will not easily be reversed. The National Health
Service Ac as given the family doctors an inducement to undertake
more midv ery work, thus tending further to reduce the midwife's
responsibi! s. We may be approaching the point where our midwives
will not be aling with sufficient cases to maintain the high degree of
competence lied for, a problem which will be accentuated in Barking
by the divid control of the domiciliary service.
I am attracted by the idea of a combined hospital and home
midwifery se ice. This suggestion should not be entirely novel to you
since a number of your domiciliary midwives spent an aggregate of
about 4 year: . the "evacuation" hospital at Radlett during the war,
and a Barking Hospital midwife later undertook domiciliary work to
help over the difficult position created by the withdrawal of the Salvation
ArmY midwives. Such a solution, whilst easy in the days when you
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