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To co-ordinate the services for the elderly even more effectively the Matron at Whipps
Cross Hospital and the Superintendent Health Visitor organised a conference at the Post Graduate
Centre in November on "The Care of the Elderly" under the chairmanship of the Medical Officer
of Health with the Consultant Geriatrician from Langthorne Hospital as the main speaker. The
conference was well attended by hospital consultants, general practitioners, senior hospital and
district nurses, health visitors, home help organisers, the Chief Welfare Officer and some of her
staff, medico-social workers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and many others concerned
with the care of the elderly. It has already resulted in even better team-work to help the aged.
Close co-operation exists with medico-social workers and other staff of the hospitals in
this area to link hospital with community care. This is especially important when a person is
mentally ill.
CLAYBURY HOSPITAL
Only in recent years has there been a trend to include in the syllabus of health visitor
training centres lectures on the subject of mental health, and some schools have also made it
possible for students to attend psychiatric hospitals, the aim of this additional training being in
the main that wider knowledge of the nature of mental illness should enable the practising health
visitor to recognise early signs of deviations from the normal. Most of the health visitors in the
borough have been qualified for several years and were most anxious to undergo some form of
mental health training to enable them similarly to include this aspect in their other duties.
The hospital staff were most anxious to help us and it was agreed that as many health
visitors as could be spared from their duties should be allowed to attend the psychiatric lectures
which are given by a consultant psychiatrist over a period of one year to senior student nurses.
This training has been carried out regularly since 1959 and during this time the
Superintendent Health Visitor has reciprocated by giving talks to trained and student nurses at
Claybury Hospital on the duties of the health visitor in the community, furthermore, all students
spend a day or more observing the work of the health visitor.
This contact between the nursing and health visiting staff is of great benefit to the
patient when a mother with a young family is involved. One health visitor attends the hospital
weekly to act as a link between the ward and the community, she assists the hospital staff with
reports on the patient's home background so that it is easier to make the right decision when
planning the patient's future.
THE GENERAL PRACTITIONER SERVICE
The need for health visitors to work more closely with family doctors has been widely
advocated in recent years and this borough has been asked to give evidence to the Ministry of
Health describing local schemes.
Attachment Schemes
These are schemes in which a health visitor is responsible for providing local health
authority services to all patients on the list of a specified family doctor and she is not limited
to working in a particular area.
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