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Difficulties have been experienced as transport is not provided, and only a few mothers
can assist in bringing not only their own child but also somebody else's to the group.
This service has been very much appreciated by mothers of handicapped children and their
demand for a further group induced the opening on the 1st September of one in Murchison
Avenue Child Health Clinic, which is run on similar lines, and supervised by the same Medical
Officer and a trained nursery nurse who also works in the other group. In addition voluntary
helpers again assist. This is a small group and children with the following handicaps have been
admitted:—
a retarded hyperactive epileptic boy;
another boy who was said to be out of control at home, who is no problem in the group
and acts as a "stimulus" for some of the slower children;
three children with spina bifida and a Spitz-Holter valve; and
a mentally retarded child with slow speech development.
This clinic has the advantage that a speech therapist is in the building on one morning
when the group meets and a physiotherapist on the other. This makes for easy inter disciplinary
consultation and decision making.
HEALTH VISITING
The section has an establishment of 43 health visitors and is headed by a Superintendent
Health Visitor, together with a Deputy and three Group Advisors. The full establishment of
trained health visitors has not yet been attained, but the service was kept going fairly well
by the use of clinic nurses who undertook much of the health visitors' routine work. These
nurses possess the basic nursing qualifications. The recruitment of trained health visitors was
generally sufficient to balance retirement but a positive gain towards a hundred per cent trained
staff was not achieved, nor is it likely to be achieved easily in the face of the national shortage
of such staff. Approximately one third of the established post for health visitors were filled
by clinic nurses.
At the Careers Evening held by the Youth Employment Officer the health visiting stand
was thought to be a potential source of recruitment even if the London Borough of Bexley
did not always benefit from it. The Council sponsors up to five student health visitors each
year for training and in the year four of these places were filled, one of them by a student
being trained on the new integrated nurse-health visiting course at Southampton. Eventually
however, the Department gained only two new health visitors because, although the other two
students also qualified, family committments prevented them from taking up post. There is a
need for male health visitors but as yet health visitor training is not available to male nurses.
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