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REPORT ON THE SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE
DURING THE YEAR 1957.
To the Chairman and Members of the Welfare and School
Attendance Sub-Committee.
Mr. Chairman Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit my Annual Report on the
School Health Service for the year 1957, the eleventh which
it has been my privilege to present.
In spite of the great advances in curative medicine during
the first half of the 20th century and, particularly, the great
extension of medical services resulting from the National
Health Service Act, 1948. the School Health Service has
maintained its unique position in the prevention and promotion
of the health of the schoolchildren. As a result of the
virtual disappearance of many of the acute infections of
childhood the discovery of the chemotherapeutic and antibiotic
drugs and improvement in nutrition and in environmental
conditions generally, the gross defects which were
so common among schoolchildren in the past are now rarely
met with in an area such as this and, in the main, our
schoolchildren reflect the improved economic and social
background in their nutritional state, clothing and parental
care. As in any community, there are exceptions to this
general rule and such children require a degree of special
attention out of all proportion to their numbers.
The School Health Service has had to adapt itself to
these changed conditions and the service, designed 50 years
ago to discover defects such as faulty vision and hearing,
uncleanliness, skin diseases, malnutrition and the like, is now
concerned more and more with the discovery of early
departures from normality, and before serious symptoms
have arisen. The service in this respect is, therefore, truly
preventive and the good link which exists with the general
practitioner ensures that any treatment which may be necessary
is promptly and effectively given. The fact, also, that
the School Health Service involves a partnership between
doctor, health visitors, parents, teachers, youth employment
officers and many other agencies, does in fact, make it an
instrument of social medicine which has no counterpart
in the Health Services of the country and is quite indispensable.
The periodic medical inspection has, during recent
years, come in for some criticism, often by people with the
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