View report page

Report of the Principal School
for the year 1967
Organisation
This is the third annual report on the School
Health Service provided since 1st April 1965 by
the London Borough of Hounslow. The
arrangement whereby the school health service
was closely integrated with the other health
services administered by the Department of Health
has continued. Joint use is made of medical,
dental, nursing and other staff as well as of
clinic premises.
Co-operation
It is important that there is an exchange of
information between hospital, general practitioner
and school medical staff.
On the whole, local hospitals send reports to the
school medical officers on children who have been
in-patients; others tend not to do so automatically
but will send reports on request.
Before any child is referred for specialist or
hospital treatment it is the practice, except in
emergencies, to ask the family doctor whether he
is in agreement, or whether he wishes to treat or
refer the child himself.
School Health Service
School Population
At the end of the year the maintained school
population was as shown below:—
Nursery schools and classes 242
Primary schools 17,445
Secondary modern schools 7,216
Grammar schools 4,017
Special schools 589
Total 29,509
Periodic Medical Inspection
Under the provisions of the Education Act it is
the duty of a local education authority to provide,
at appropriate intervals, for the medical inspection
of pupils in attendance at any school provided by
Medical Officer
them. The authority may require the parent of any
pupil, in attendance at such school, to submit the
pupil for medical inspection in accordance with
the arrangements made for such inspection.
Periodic medical inspections are carried out on
school entry, at the ages of 8 and 11 years, and at
school leaving age. Efforts are made to examine
children in nursery classes each term. The medical
examination at 11 years includes a colour vision
test.
When a periodic medical inspection is arranged,
the head teacher is asked to submit the names of
any other pupils in whose case special medical
inspection is thought to be advisable. Also pupils
requiring follow-up from previous medical
inspections can be seen and thus the visit of the
medical officer to the school is used to cover a
wider field than a selected age group. If the best
results are to be obtained from these visits to
school there should be close collaboration and
consultation between medical officer and head
teacher.
At the 'leavers'' examination, Form Y9 is
completed for each pupil and forwarded to the
Youth Employment Officer. This form indicates if
there are any health reasons for avoiding certain
types of occupation.
The number of pupils submitted to periodic
medical inspection during the year was 7,855 and
the results are shown in Table 30a. The physical
condition of 120 (1.5%) was considered to be
unsatisfactory. The concept of unsatisfactory
physical conditions varies with the examining
doctors but the important point is that efforts are
made to bring the pupil to a satisfactory physical
state.
Special Examinations and Re-examinations
Any parent, head teacher, school nurse, speech
therapist, physiotherapist or audiometrician, etc.
may request the medical examination of a pupil
and these special examinations are usually carried
out at clinics. Regular sessions are held at these
clinics when a medical officer is in attendance to
see school children, and where necessary special
sessions are arranaed.
36
The examinations carried out during the year
were as follows:—