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43
SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE.
The administration of the School Health Service continues
to be the function of the Middlesex County Council. Ealing
Divisional Executive as an "excepted district" makes the arrangements
for medical examinations and the Area Health Committee
arranges for treatment and disposal of the children.

In some quarters it has been suggested that the School Health
Service should concentrate mostly on the entrants and leavers
and tbat with the greatly improved facilities for obtaining medical
care in recent years the intermediate examination is not so important.
Be that as it may, the fact that 4,009 special examinations have been
asked for by the parents and teachers shows that the school medical
service continues to play an essential role in maintaining the health
of the school child.
Not only does the school doctor by his routine examinations
detect deviations from health in an early stage while they are
still easily corrected, but he serves as an adviser to the Education
Authorities on methods of preventing the spread of infectious
diseases and the maintenance and improvement of the standards of
school premises.
The system whereby one medical officer was made responsible
for each area of the Borough has proved most successful in practice
and is being continued.
There are many advantages to all concerned in that co-operation
between teacher, doctor and parent is greatly improved.
The doctors welcome the scheme in that it brings greater
variety into their work and helps them to know the children better ;
the parent too quickly comes to know the local doctor at the welfare
clinic and school clinic—and the teacher knows that the school
doctor is always working somewhere in the vicinity in case of need.
Ninety seven pupils seen during the year were classified as
physically poor as against seventy-nine in the previous year
This is a small number, i.e., 1.50% and compares favourably with
other areas of Middlesex.
The co-operation of parents in the area continues to be most
satisfactory. At the infant and intermediate examinations a very
large percentage of the parents attend with the children and it is
unusual to find a case in which treatment advised is not carried
out,