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27
Personal Health Services
Co-operation with other Agencies concerned with the Personal Health Services
In view of the amount of criticism which has been made of the tripartite nature of the health
services, it is interesting to review the amount of co-operation which exists between this department
and other bodies in the area.
The catchment area of Hillingdon Hospital lies almost entirely within the Borough, so it is to be
expected that most contact should be here. For some years a liaison health visitor has attended regularly
in the maternity department. She is able to help ante-natal patients with information on local authority
services available, to follow up defaulters and so on.
During the year arrangements were made for a home nurse to visit the geriatric department twice
a week to exchange information about old people about to be discharged from or admitted to the unit.
This has proved extremely useful and has improved still further the relationship between the services.
This arrangement was followed up by a general scheme for receiving direct instructions about other
patients about to be discharged from hospital. The Superintendent of Home Nursing or her Deputy
calls on the departmental sisters daily to discuss the home nursing needs of patients due for discharge
and to contact the appropriate general practitioner.
There is a regular interchange of information about specific matters with the paediatric department.
The assessment of handicapped children is a specialist function of the borough medical officers and their
detailed reports have proved useful to the paediatricians.
There is close participation in the varied training programmes for nurses, midwives and health
visitors in the schools of nursing at Hillingdon, Harefield and Mount Vernon Hospitals, and facilities
are made available for the training visits required for the doctors' postgraduate Diploma in Child
Health.
For some years case conferences on certain families in the district have been held under the combined
chairmanship of the Medical Officer of Health and the Children's Officer. Other services involved
here include education, housing, probation, N.S.P.C.C. and the Ministry of Social Security.
The pooling of information, ideas and manpower has proved useful to all involved.
Service by the Medical Officer of Health and Senior Medical Officers on local hospital management
committees has proved a useful exercise in gaining personal contact with hospital staff and also in
disseminating information about the local authority services available.
DAY NURSERIES
There are four day nurseries in the Borough providing a total of 170 places, but in an emergency
each nursery can accommodate an additional 10 children. This ensures that places are always available
to cover crises, such as a mother's admission to hospital.
Two nurseries are situated in Hayes; one in Nestle's Avenue and one, known as Peter Pan Day
Nursery, in the Uxbridge Road. One nursery is at the rear of the Council Offices in Uxbridge High
Street, and the remaining one is in Station Road, West Drayton. Three of the nurseries are approved
as training schools for the National Nursery Examination Board's Certificate.
The over-riding principle governing admission to a day nursery is that there shall be a health or
social consideration in each case, and the majority of the children admitted come into one of these
categories:—
(a) the children of an unsupported mother, (e.g. unmarried, widowed, divorced or separated);
(b) children whose home conditions are unsatisfactory from the health point of view;
(c) children whose mothers are incapable of caring for them adequately;
(d) handicapped children (i.e. partially, or completely deaf, maladjusted, or partially sighted).