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PERSONAL HEALTH SERVICE
This section deals with those services which come under the
control of the Barking Health Area Sub-Committee of the Health
Committee of the Essex County Council.
CLINIC PREMISES
Health Services Clinic—Thames View Estate. Restrictions on
capital expenditure were not lifted during the year which meant that
approval continued to be withheld for the erection of a Health Services
Clinic. It was decided, therefore, to consider the opening of
temporary clinic services in the surgery premises erected by the
Barking Borough Council on behalf of family doctors serving the
Estate. At the end of the year negotiations were in progress with
the Thames View Group Practice for the use of their surgery on two
afternoons per week, one for an Infant Welfare Clinic and the other
for a Mid wives' Clinic.
Central Clinic. During the year it became necessary to renew
the central heating boiler which had been in continuous use since the
clinic was opened in 1933, and the opportunity was taken to instal
an oil fired system at a cost of just over £1,000. The utomatic firing
of the new installation reduces the need for a boilerman to a minimum
and moreover ensures a steadier and more ever heat which in
turn means that less supplementary heating, viz. electric heaters, is
required. These savings will more than offset the slightly increased
expenditure on the purchase of fuel.
Upney Clinic. These premises were built originally as a Civil
Defence First Aid Post and since the end of the War with very little
refinement have been used for out-patients service of the Regional
Hospital Board and the Essex County Council. By virtue of its near
ness to the Barking Maternity Hospital, the clinic has been used
increasingly during the past few years for ante natal and allied
vices for patients booked for confinement in the hospital.
The first-aid post lay-out of the clinic did not lend itself to the
greatly increased number of clinical sessions and it was decided
undertake alterations which would enable ante natal and/ or post
natal sessions to be run concurrently with minor ailments, infant welfare
or paediatric sessions, etc.
These alterations were completed in the early autumn and are
described as under:—
"Additional partition walls have turned one large room
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