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dental inspection, inspection of uncleanliness, ascertainment of
pupils requiring special educational treatment, all matters dealt
with under Section 57 of the Education Act, and the provision of
Child Guidance Services (other than specialist treatment) remain
the responsibility of the Divisional Executive.
The second important change, which came into operation on
September 6th, 1948, was connected with the Ophthalmic Services
for school children. For many years the Divisional Executive
had maintained a contract with a firm of dispensing opticians for
the supply and repair of spectacles for school children.
Prescriptions issued by the Ophthalmic Surgeon at the health
clinics were fulfilled by the firm within the space of a fortnight
or three weeks, and the spectacles were then issued to the children
at the Health Clinics.
By arrangement with the Maternity and Child Welfare Committee,
this service was extended to pre-school children and expectant
and nursing mothers.
Under the National Health Service Act it is intended that
Ophthalmic Services shall ultimately become the responsibility
of the Hospital and Specialist Services of the Regional Hospital
Boards. As an interim measure, however, the National Health
Service (Supplementary Ophthalmic Services) Regulations, 1948,
were issued. These regulations insofar as they apply to school
children, require that the prescription for spectacles issued by the
Ophthalmic Surgeon at the Health Clinic shall be to a dispensing
optician of his own choice. This involved the cancellation of the
Divisional Executive's special arrangements for the supply and
repair of spectacles, and it was also found that it was no longer
permissible to extend the School Ophthalmic Service to mothers and
young children.
It will thus be seen that school children, pre-school children,
and expectant and nursing mothers have been deprived of the
priority ophthalmic arrangements which they enjoyed before the
advent of the National Health Service, for there are now no official
arrangements by which they may be afforded priority in the dispensing
of their prescriptions. Many cases of hardship have arisen
as a consequence, and school children have been severely handicapped
in their work by having to wait for several months without
suitable spectacles. It is also being found that frame measurements
are outgrown by the time the spectacles are supplied.
Stricter standards have been applied in the selection of children
for ascertainment as handicapped. Ascertainment is not now
restricted to children whose degree of handicap warrants education
in a special school, but is extended to all those children whose
handicap requires any departure from the normal school educational
routine.