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When an elderly couple have been separated by illness and admission to hospital the
spouse left at home can be re-assured and supported, especially where age and disability
make frequent visits to the hospital more and more difficult and help may also be given through
statutory and voluntary agencies.
Claybury Hospital
In the present time when there is so much public concern over mental health, the
liaison between the health visiting staff and Claybury Hospital is of great benefit to all
concerned. The essence of this liaison is the participation of the health visitor in the group
therapy meeting and her presence at the following staff meeting.
These meetings take place on Tuesday mornings at Claybury. The health visitor
attends the group therapy on N.I ward where the patients are encouraged to talk about their
problems and difficulties. Those who, because they are introverted or because of their
illness or for other reasons, find communication difficult just listen, and benefit from hearing
others discuss their problems and are reassured that there are others experiencing the same
or similar difficulties.
Following the ward meeting there is a staff meeting, this consists of the professional
staff attending the ward meeting. Treatment, progress and aims are discussed and comments
are invited from all present. Information is exchanged between the hospital staff and those
workers from the community.
The health visitor participates fully in all aspects and is made very aware of the
latest mental health problems and treatments, and passes on information to other health
visitors which will be of assistance in dealing with their families with mental health problems.
Whipps Cross Hospital
An interesting and rewarding aspect of the Health Visitor's work is the continuation of
liaison that has been established between the health visiting staff and several of the local
hospitals. This is extremely useful for the passing on of information received from the
hospital about a family to the appropriate health visitor and the feed back of information from
the health visitor to the hospital.
This liaison is well established at Whipps Cross Hospital, where twice a week a
health visitor participates in the consultant paediatrician's round on Margaret and Edward
Ward. The health visitor plays an active part in these rounds, as Dr.Hinden (the consultant)
will often ask for social and domestic information on a child being treated, and the health
visitor will then contact the colleague concerned and the information requested will be
passed, within a few days, back to the hospital, resulting in a better understanding of the
family and often bringing to light some difficulty of which the hospital was not aware.
This is extremely helpful especially in cases of battered babies where Dr.Hinden
will often call for a conference between the medical staff, the health visitor, Children's
Department and N.S.P.C.C. to establish facts and work out a course of action for when the
child concerned is fit for discharge.
At the same time the passing on of the information of a child's stay in hospital to the
health visitor will help to a greater awareness of those children 'at risk', such as the baby
with a feeding problem, or the immigrant child with a deficient diet, or the family with a
mentally or physically handicapped child that will need extra support, in fact everyone
concerned benefits from this liaison scheme.
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