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Committee, the Tottenham Group Hospital
Management Committee, Hammersmith Hospital,
Queen Charlotte's Hospital, West Middlesex
Hospital, Bearsted Hospital, Perivale Hospital,
Ashford Hospital, the London Boroughs of
Hounslow, Ealing, Hammersmith and Richmondupon-Thames,
the Middlesex Executive
Committee, the Middlesex Local Medical
Committee and the Local Medical Committee for
the County of London met only once this year.
The catchment areas of the various hospitals in
the locality were again reviewed and it was decided
that the new maternity unit at Ashford Hospital
would initially, and subject to review again later,
serve patients only from the urban districts of
Staines and Sunbury. It was also agreed to adopt
the same practice throughout the region with
regard to the blood-testing procedures of the
Rhesus negative patients. A further report on
maternity records and the child observation
project was also considered.
Health Visiting Section 24
Health visitors are concerned in teaching the
principles of healthy living and in counselling all
members of the family. Much of the work of the
health visitor is undertaken in the homes, where
she can talk with individuals in their own
environment. She has contact with family and
clinic doctors, midwives, district nurses, home
helps and other staff concerned with the provision
of welfare services and members of the many
voluntary organisations. Nevertheless she is, by
virtue of her training and pre-requisite
qualifications, a practitioner in her own right.
As she combines the skills of nursing with that of
training in the public health field she acts largely
on her own initiative and draws on her skill and
experience to give a service to the community
which is unique within the health service. A
health visitor brings to her work in the community
a knowledge that enables her to recognise and
identify need at the earliest opportunity, be it in
the field of mental, physical or emotional illhealth,
and to mobilise appropriate resources
where necessary. This includes support during
periods of stress and advice and guidance in case
of illness as well as in the care and management of
children. Hounslow has a proportion of
Commonwealth immigrants, mostly from India,
Pakistan and Kenya and health visitors have
adapted their advice and teaching skills to the
cultural and dietetic requirements of the different
ethnic groups and helped to initiate their
integration into the local community in a most
competent and satisfying manner. Nevertheless,
the lack of adequate housing for these immigrants,
their relatively high fertility, their inability, in
many instances, to speak or to understand English,
has greatly added to the complexity of the work
and to the actual time required for each case,
despite the assistance given by the interpreter
employed by the borough. As in previous years,
trained nurses relieve our health visitors of most
of the work in schools and clinics, enabling the
health visitors to engage in the maximum amount
of home visiting.
Staff
The establishment for health visitors is 34. At the
end of the year the staff consisted of one
superintendent, one deputy superintendent, and
the whole-time equivalent of 21 health visitors
and 10 clinic nurses.
Training
During the year two health visitors attended a
field worker's instruction course at Chiswick
Polytechnic, and one health visitor attended a
course on health education in schools. One of the
health visitors went on a fortnight's refresher
course and the superintendent and several health
visitors attended day conferences. Four health
visitors went to lecture-demonstrations at
Springfield Hospital on twelve consecutive
Monday afternoons, and one attended a borough
in-training course on Care for the Aged on six
consecutive Wednesday afternoons.
Students
The borough sponsored five student health visitors
whose training commenced in September. The
shortage of health visitors continues to impose
severe restrictions on any expansion of the work
but plans for liaison between health visitors and
family doctors has begun and more will be put in
practice as soon as possible.
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