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days per week to health visiting in the added areas. All
the full-time health visitors give half of their time to the
School Medical Service, and one health visitor continues
to attend the Tuberculosis Dispensary on each Wednesday
afternoon session.
Table XII., in the appendix, gives details of the work
of home visiting during 1933.
The total number of visits made by the health visitors
during 1933 amounted to 6.110 compared with 6.118 for
1932. The policy of not including " ineffectual " visits
in the total number of visits has been repeated this year.
These visits for 1933 numbered in all 1,171 and were
made up of visits where no answer was received, the family
was discovered to have moved or visits were not
appreciated. They have little, if any, value from a public
health point of view and consequently should not he
tabulated as a contribution to health visiting work and the
teaching of mothercraft.
I pointed out in my annual report for 1932 that
material improvement in the number of visits could not
be looked for in 1933 because growing population,
additional welfare centre and that constant housing
developments creating additional areas to be traversed
would exert a retarding influence on satisfics of home
visitation. This view has been borne out by the figures
which show a negligible decrease of eight between the
total visits for 1932 and 1933. With the additional
welfare centre in 1933 there has been an all round increase
in the attendances and work at the welfare centres, and if
the total number of visits at the end of 1934 remain at
the same level the health visiting staff will have
accomplished all that can be reasonably expected of them
especially as development of the area shows no signs of
cessation.
Welfare Centres.
The Corporation provides six welfare centres in the
Borough, at which seven sessions are now held weekly,
and one fortnightly. During the year under review,
however, seven sessions were held weekly, and the