View report page

32
Personal Health Services
Mentally handicapped children are visited at approximately six-monthly intervals until the age of
16 years.
Aged persons living alone and who do not need the home nursing service or consideration for
admission to the department's aged persons' accommodation.
Referrals for whatever need from general practitioners, hospital medical and nursing staff, and
medical social workers.
During home visits to mothers of very young children, advice on infant nutrition, techniques of
feeding and the need for supplementary vitamins is readily accepted by most of the mothers whatever
their standard of education.
Physically children have great opportunities to thrive, but emotional development is greatly affected
by increasing stresses of family life and modern day society. Health visitors, who are trained to understand
family psychology, listen to parents' anxieties, which often centre on their children, and give
guidance and reassurance accordingly. In the course of their duties they offer advice on all matters of
health to individuals, urging the seeking of medical opinion when symptoms are of a suspicious nature,
and encouraging acceptance of medical screenings such as mass X-ray, and cervical cytology in the
apparently healthy.
Immigrants present special problems. Many have language difficulties and are unaccustomed to
climatic and cultural conditions in this country. Health visitors overcome the communication difficulties
by meeting the husbands and senior school children who usually have mastered the language.
(b) Clinic activities in which health visitors participate are child welfare sessions, and the health
education programmes for expectant mothers.
Young children from the age of a few weeks can be brought to the local authority child health
clinics for the purpose of supervision of their physical and mental development. Health visitors advise
on all aspects of care and management. Assistant medical officers are present at most of these sessions
to undertake periodic medical examinations. Children who may need more regular examinations are
those from the "at risk" groups due to conditions arising at the time of birth or because of illness or
accident.
The expectant mother preparation classes consist of the teaching of modern methods of relaxation,
and information and discussion sessions. Short courses are arranged at some centres for the husbands
of expectant mothers to acquaint them with the facilities that are available and to give them some idea
of the content of the information which is being made available to the prospective mothers.
(c) School Activities
Health visitors are present at medical inspections of infant school children as the persons most
probably known to mothers and children prior to admission to school. In some schools health visitors
are invited to participate in health education programmes arranged for senior pupils.
The health visitor acts as a link between the Maternity Unit at Hillingdon Hospital and the Local
Authority. The liaison health visitor to the Maternity Unit is present at the ante-natal clinic three times
a week, and the relevant information obtained is passed to the appropriate colleague responsible for
the district from which the patient came.
One member of the staff acts as a link between the two chest clinics and the local authority services.
The care and after-care of individuals suffering from tuberculosis is the local authority's responsibility,
and the tuberculosis visitor is employed for this purpose. She attends the chest clinics held at Mount
Vernon and Hillingdon Hospitals weekly as a link between the chest physicians and the local authority
services. Her functions are to prevent the spread of infection as well as to alleviate any situation causing
anxiety or hardship in the family. The tuberculosis visitor works closely with the general health visitors,
particularly where there are young children involved.
The Qualifications of the Present Health Visitors
Most of the senior staff, in addition to being general state registered nurses and qualified midwives,