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in order to take pernasal swabs of the patient and pre-school household
contacts. At the same time record cards were completed. These swabs
were then passed to Colindale for the necessary laboratory investigations.
Investigation was still in progress at the end of the year.
Liaison Schemes with Hospitals
A Health Visitor continued to attend the Paediatric Department at
Edgware General Hospital. She informs the Health Visitor concerned of
any difficulties in the progress and rehabilitation of child patients receiving
care from the hospital and the local authority. This scheme continues to
be valuable to both services.
The liaison scheme with Kingsbury Maternity Hospital has continued.
Two Health Visitors attend for a series of four weeks, the lectures and
ward teaching rounds as well as the At Risk clinic conducted by Dr.
Barrie of the Paediatric Department of the Charing Cross Hospital Group.
A rota system has been worked out and all Health Visitors attended during
the year. A very much closer working relationship has thus been established
through this scheme.
The third scheme for liaison between the district and the geriatric
wards at Roxbourne Hospital has continued to work well.
Student Visits to the District
Programmes were arranged for groups of students to observe the
various activities in the local health authority field. These groups included
students from nurses' training schools at the Middlesex, Edgware General
and Mount Vernon Hospitals, a nursing administration student from
Trinidad, student health visitors and social workers from various training
schools and several groups of scholars from secondary schools in the
neighbourhood.
Work of the Health Visitor
All health visiting staff were fully committed during the year with
consultative and advisory work in the clinics and in the home. Their field
of work spreads through all age groups but with an ageing population
the numbers of the visits to the elderly is undoubtedly on the increase—
these rose from 757 in 1965 to 1,141 in 1966.
Section 25 — Home Nursing