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2
Staffing Problems
To meet difficulties in recruiting Health Visitors, who are also
School Nurses, an establishment of State Registered and State Enrolled
Nurses was approved, to give assistance in performing suitable duties.
An in-service training course was arranged for these new members of
staff, who are proving of great help in releasing Health Visitors for tasks
which only they can perform. The full development of the partially hearing
units was again delayed by failure to recruit teachers, and despite
strenuous efforts no solution to this problem seems likely before September
1967.
Handicapped Pupils
A special day unit for speech disordered children was opened in
January, and soon proved suitable for many who would otherwise have
needed residential care. Your Senior Speech Therapist, Mrs.S.M. Wickerson,
reports in some detail about this venture, and her account is commended
to you (Appendix F, page 70). At St. Giles* School for physically handicapped
children, facilities for physiotherapy and speech therapy were
improved, but the division of St. Luke's School for partially sighted
pupils into widely separated primary and secondary sections has shown
the disadvantages which were anticipated. The opening under the direct
control of the Consultant Psychiatrist of the Child Guidance Clinic of a
day hospital for mentally disturbed children allowed positive action for
this numerically very small but administratively most troublesome group
of handicapped pupils. This is a temporary expedient pending the special
unit already approved in the building programme. Special facilities were
also continued for groups of pupils not included in the designated categories,
but having disabilities for which no other service provides
remedial measures. Thus there are further reports on the Weight Control
and Enuresis clinics, and a comment by the Senior Physiotherapist on
experimental work for the relief of dysmenorrhea.
Health Education
A working party of the Education and Health Departments concluded
their considerations on an outline programme for Health Education courses
in secondary schools. It was anticipated that this would be printed by the
Corporation for distribution in the Borough. However, the final draft by
the Principal Health Education Officer, Miss D.S. Elliott, and the Senior
Woman Inspector, Miss E.T. May, was accepted by a leading publisher
of Educational books, and should shortly be available for national distribution.
Many requests have been received for our present Health
Education course in secondary schools, and this is included as an
Appendix to the Report.