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41
During the year 20 student midwives were trained in the
borough under the new Community Care Training Scheme. They received
lectures from the deputy medical officer of health, supervisor of
midwives and other staff of the Health and Welfare Department.
Group Attachment
Three full-time midwives and one district nurse/midwife
are fully attached to general practices in the borough. They all
attend the doctors® ante-natal sessions and also attend the patients
having home confinements in each practice area.
The only difficulty arising in this working arrangement
with the doctors was that the doctors have patients who are booked
on the outskirts of the boroughs where the midwives were not
authorised to practise, but the provisions of the Health Services
and Public Health Act 1968 now enable this difficulty to be overcome
and detailed discussions are taking place.
Guthrie Testing for Phenylketonuria (PKU)
This department acts as a collecting centre for this test.
The domiciliary midwives are responsible for the taking of the
specimen of all babies born at home and also for the infants discharged
home at 48 hours following delivery in hospital.
The specimens are taken by the midwives on the sixth day
of life. The sample is then sent to the Regional Infant Screening
Service at Queen Mary's Hospital, Carshalton. When results are
received from the hospital the health visitors are informed and the
child's records entered accordingly.
HOME NURSING
At the end of December 1969 the staff of the home nursing
service consisted of the superintendent and her deputy, who also
acted as non-medical supervisors of the midwifery service, 24 fulltime
and 14 part-time home nurses, 3 full-time persons who shared
their time between the home nursing and midwifery services, and one
full-time and 4 part-time nursing auxiliaries.
The services of the district nurses were made available
at the request of general practitioners, evening calls being covered
by a rota of nurses.