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REPORT ON THE SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE
DURING THE YEAR 1962
To the Chairman and Members of the Welfare and School
Attendance Sub-Committee.
Madam Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit my Annual Report for the
year 1962.
During the year the School Health Service continued to
provide a full range of services, details of which are set out
in the body of the report. It has often been stressed that the
School Health Service is, essentially, a preventive service and
this is why, after so many years, we continue to give regular
medical examinations to our schoolchildren, in most cases
four times in the course of their school lives. We do our
utmost to ensure that these examinations do not become too
" routine" and the co-operation of parents and teaching
staffs at these examinations does much to ensur
most is made of this opportunity to assess the healt status
of the child as an individual both in his) home and in his
'school environment. We have so far, refrained from advoeating
the more selective methods of medical inspect now
being pursued experimentally in a number of districts with
varying degrees of success.
The preventive nature of the service is show also in
the work which is done in maintaining the immunity of the
schoolchild by vaccination and immunisation against diphtheria,
poliomyelitis, tuberculosis and other infectious dieases
all of which have been pleasingly conspicuous by their
absence or low incidence during the year.
T have commented, freely, in past years on local and
national trends affecting the School Health Service and many
of these have now become an accepted part of the Borough
service. As examoles of this may be quoted routine Pure -tone
audiometry for all children at the age of seven years- B.C.G.
vaccination against tuberculosis, the early ascertainment of
physical and mental handicap (often at the age of about two
vears) the supplementation of the School Dental Service by
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