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"It is desirable that more time should be given to each patient,
and if the casual or special case decreases, that may be possible.
"There is now in use the redrafted consent form, which states
that the offer of treatment will not be repeated if consent is withheld.
The following-out of this scheme with any degree of accuracy
may prove to be a matter of considerable difficulty. Among the
difficulties may be mentioned:—
" 1. The absence of willing patients at the time of inspection.
"2. The acceptance, which, apart from ill-health or justifiable
excuse, deliberately fails to keep an appointment when made.
"3. The moving of scholars from school to school.
"4. The tracing of past acceptances to other departments or
schools.
"5. The new scholar from other districts where there may or
may not have been any facility for dental treatment.
"6. The necessity of keeping an accurate record of acceptances.
"The last may only be met by forming a panel from the infant
scholar upwards. It may be necessary to have, for these patients,
special chart cards which would be readily at hand to take, if
desired, to the school at inspection.
"The numbers at the next yearly routine inspection will
naturally be very much reduced by the exclusion of the preceding
year's refusals, and the percentages of acceptances should be much
higher than those of the past years.
"Previously, in accordance with the Board of Education's
requirements, whether treatment had been accepted or not, every
child has been annually inspected and re-inspected as the years
passed. The special or casual who sent in a signed form has been
treated as an ordinary case in every respect and has, in fact,
been recorded in the report as a routine case.
"In the early days of the clinic a count was taken of these
casual cases, and their numbers exceeded those who came as
acceptances from routine inspection. Unfortunately, very many
parents value the clinic for the purpose of extractions only. The
reduced facility for immediate treatment may have some effect on
this attitude of mind.
"The acceptance numbers vary at different ages of school life.
On the whole, the Infant Schools show the largest number of