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PERSONAL HEALTH
visit the borough periodically for practical training in community services.
The Social Services Department and the technical colleges also were given
opportunities for their students to learn about the work of the health visitors
and the department generally.
Weekly sessions of the slimmers' advisory service were held at two centres.
The average attendance was 29 at the Health Centre (a total of 1,470 attendances
at 51 sessions) and 42 at Bullsmoor Clinic (a total of 2,101 attendances
at 50 sessions). Referrals were made by general practitioners, local hospitals,
local authority medical officers and health visitors. Talks on diet were given
by the health visitors, and diet sheets and weight record cards were issued.
Attendance at twelve consecutive weekly sessions was encouraged. (See Table
14).
Slimmers' Advisory
Centres
Home Nursing
It is the duty of every local health authority to make provision in their area
for securing the attendance of nurses on persons who require nursing in their
own homes.
Section 25,
National Health Service
Act, 1946
Local health authorities may make provision for the attendance of home
nurses on persons who require nursing elsewhere than in their own homes,
thereby facilitating co-operation between general medical practice and local
health authority services. Local health authorities may also arrange between
themselves for the services of home nurses to be used in one another's area
on agreed terms and conditions, and at the end of the year negotiations
with a neighbouring authority were well advanced. There was a substantial
increase in the amount of work undertaken by nurses during the year.
Section 11,
Health Services and
Public Health Act 1968
Disposable Equipment
The use of disposable equipment contributed to the maintenance of
improved efficiency and safety. All nurses used disposable syringes, dressing
forceps and enemata.
Marie Curie Memorial
Foundation
This Foundation meets the cost of a service, run by the Department, which
provides day and night nursing and sitter-in care for cancer patients. The
Foundation also provides for extra comforts, special needs, items of diet
and equipment to assist the nursing of these cases. During the year eleven
patients were provided with this service, the nurses being provided through
nurses agencies.
Our own home nurses also continued to work a late evening rota to give
morphine injections to certain cancer patients not being provided with a
nursing service under the Marie Curie Memorial Foundation's Scheme and the
number of late night visits increased considerably during the year. This
arrangement was superseded in September by the commencement of an
evening nursing service which has proved a very valuable service for seriously
ill patients and tremendous support for the relatives. The provision of an
all-night nursing service is another objective.
Evening Nursing Service
Attachment arrangements were made for a further two practices, making a
total of 22 home nurses attached to seventeen practices, serving a total of
55 general practitioners.
Liaison with General
Practitioners
Ancillary Help
Experience has shown that a large number of visits solely for the bathing of
patients can be undertaken by less skilled staff working under the supervision
of home nurses, and during the year the number of nursing auxiliaries
employed to undertake this work was increased.
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