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In view of National Health Service Reorganisation it is especially relevant to note the supporting services
now given to National Health Service Hospitals and Centres and to the Local Authority Social Services Department,
and the need for any new authority to maintain these services to the present high standard of provision.
Anomalies of referral procedures to Child Guidance Clinics should be rectified after 1974.
The analysis of referrals indicates various associations where further research could prove fruitful, and
high in priority should be research as to why boys-form 72% of the total of referrals for learning and behaviour
problems.
AUDIOLOGY
In this report a very valid point is made that time spent in excluding deafness is as justifiable as time spent
in identifying and diagnosing deafness. It is, therefore, reassuring to note that 4,866 children (8 years) out of a total
5,095 passed the necessary audiometric examination. The further educational provision for hearing impaired children
is set out in the Report, and especial praise is due to the staff of the Peripatetic Service of Teachers of the Deaf and to
the Head Teachers and staff concerned with the Unit at Darrick Wood.
Members will be aware of the need for secondary provision within the Borough for children with impaired
hearing, and the progress towards this end that has already been achieved.
The co-operation of two Medical Officers interested in this speciality of School Health with the Peripatetic
Teachers of the Deaf, the development of aids in ordinary classrooms, the supervision at the Hearing Clinic, and
counselling services to parents and teachers, has helped to retain as many partially hearing children as possible in
their neighbourhood schools.
HANDICAPPED PUPILS
The handicapped pupil attends an ordinary school for preference both for social and educational reasons,
and in Bromley the splendid co-operation of Head Teachers, the School Health Section and the Social Services
Department, assures that such children are correctly identified and placed, and that their parents receive informed
counsel in their care both at home and at school.
A report from the Department of Education and Science on a National Survey of the welfare of physically
handicapped children attending neighbourhood schools indicates the criteria by which certain children should be
selected for special schools and suggests that studies should continue on the welfare needs of children who attend
neighbourhood schools.
The building of a Special School for handicapped children adjacent to Coopers School, Chislehurst, has
commenced, and also during the year a new Phoenix Centre at Farnborough Hospital, presented to the Hospital
by the Spastic Society was opened by Sir Keith Joseph, Bt. M.P., Secretary of State for Social Services. The
Centre has impressed all by its spaciousness and comprehensive planning for the needs of a wide range of spastic
children who now attend.
Cheyne Hospital School, West Wickham, also provides for physically handicapped children and during
the year the hospital admitted six children transferred from Leybourne Grange Hospital.
The activities at the five Special Day Schools, are dealt with in detail towards the end of the Report and
the special defects of children attending these schools are noted.
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