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HEALTH VISITING AND SCHOOL NURSING
It came as a surprise to many people when health visiting celebrated its centenary
this year. They had thought that health visiting evolved from the needs of the second
world war, particularly the need to follow up evacuated families and to promote the antidiphtheria
campaign, whereas in fact, health visiting was pioneered in 1862. Although
Florence Nightingale was too busy to undertake the problems of the organisation of
health visiting she wrote much advice about how it should be organised. She stressed
the qualifications required for what she called "home health bringing" and said that
"tact and judgement unlimited" were the prime essentials. The "health missioner"
as she was called then must create a new profession, a new type of work amongst women.
The first organised training course for health visitors began in North Buckinghamshire
in 1891 under the auspices of the newly appointed Medical Officer of Health.
This link between health visiting and the Medical Officer of Health has survived the
years and must remain unbroken if the health visitor is to continue to carry out the health
promotion which was envisaged as her original purpose.
Despite progress and improvement in training and qualification and in spite of
widening horizons the basic concept of the health visitor as friend and counsellor to the
family remains.
Many other social workers of one type or another have entered into the field of
activity of the health visitor for special purposes, but it still remains true to say that the
foundation for all the health visitors' work has been the confidence engendered through
mutual trust and respect between mother and health visitor.
An Annual Report requires that we take stock of the past year and acknowledge the
fact that all we attempted has not been achieved; it also requires that we should reassess
needs and try to set our future aims so that we can direct our energies and time
and money towards the continuance of the battle against the problems apparent on all
sides. These problems must be dealt with if we are to promote healthy living—that is
well-being of body, mind and spirit.
Many of our problems can be dealt with by a wide dissemination of up-to-date
information with simplification of complicated scientific facts in such a way as to render
assimilation of knowledge easy. No doubt there are a larger percentage of children born
in good health than ever before, yet illness is a current topic and hospitals are meeting
greater demands than in the past. We must attempt to distinguish what a person needs
from what he wants. Today there is available much that is essential for healthy living
and it is in many instances up to the individual to take advantage of whatever is available.
The grasping of opportunity is a matter of individual decision to be made by each person.
The health department is in a unique position to interpret to the public the factors
affecting the health of the community and to put forward the relationship between
environmental and personal health.
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