View report page

2
A local service for the early ascertainment and treatment of
deafness combining local authority and hospital facilities was
established and is working smoothly. In my Annual Report for
1950, I first suggested the desirability of such a scheme and it
may seem a long interval before it has been brought into being.
However, there have been many changes and developments over the
last decade and we have had the advantages of learning from the
mistakes of others. It is true that parents have had to travel
to and from London for a service which is now available in
Croydon, but there have been many difficulties which a pioneer
clinic controlled by a voluntary hospital could readily overcome
in a manner hardly possible for a local authority.
In short, I think the quality of the service we are now
offering would not have been possible until quite recently and
is well worth the waiting period. The next step would seem to
be local educational facilities for deaf or partially deaf
children, but once again I think we must be cautious in giving
up the excellent facilities now available through the assistance
of the London County Council. Only when you are certain of equal
quality in a local service should you allow the time, inconvenience
and expense of sending children into London to influence
the Committee's present policy.
There was also a marked strengthening in the Child Guidance
service, firstly by the appointment of a full-time Consultant
Child Psychiatrist and on the local authority side, the appointment
of an Educational Psychologist. The latter is, of course,
a member of the Child Guidance Clinic team and a minor defect of
co-ordination with Education staff has been remedied.
The Principal Dental Officer deals with the persistent problems
of this service and it is particularly disappointing that
the replacement of the clinic for south Croydon and Waddon made
very little real progress. It was necessary to await the results
of an application to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government
regarding the use of a site and in the end, permission was
refused. An alternative was available, subject to access being
allowed and by the close of the year, all the site problems had
been solved.