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Central Middlesex Hospitals. It is becoming increasingly difficult to
provide this training as there are fewer domiciliary confinements for the
pupils to deliver but it is expected that the opening of the domiciliary
ward in Kingston Hospital will improve the situation because it will provide
an additional source of experience for the pupil midwives.
Births Survey
This survey was organised under the joint auspices of the National
Birthday Trust and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
Midwives, both from the Kingston Hospital and from the domiciliary field,
co-operated in this survey following briefing by Mr.Geoffrey Chamberlain who
addressed them at a local branch meeting of the Royal College of Midwives.
The staff found the work of collecting data interesting and look forward to
being advised of the results of the survey when these are available.
HOME NURSING
The work has increased during the year, due partly to the full
implementation of group attachment of district nursing teams to the
general practices.
The final attachments were completed in September. Prior to
this, all the doctors requesting to have nursing staff attached were
visited by the Medical Officer of Health and the Nursing Superintendent.
The work load of the practice was assessed and informal discussion took
place on the volume and type of work within each practice.
Some doctors were unaware of the procedures the nurses could
undertake and guide lines on this were issued to each doctor.
The remainder of the doctors who had not requested attachment
and who, in the main, work in single practices, were notified and given
full particulars of the nurse who would be visiting their patients and
thus were given the opportunity of forming closer ties with each nurse
who would call in, by prior arrangement, to see them at the surgeries.
The work now undertaken by the staff is much more varied, and
the trained staff are not regarded as being employed 3olely on "hygiene
care of the patients" but are using the skills for which they have been
trained to a greater advantage. Less skilled tasks are undertaken by
the enrolled nurse and the auxiliary in the team.
2,814 patients were nursed at home during the year and 111,748
visits were paid to them. Another 1,393 were treated in general
practitioners' surgeries.