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Report of the Principal School Medical Officer
for the year 1968
Organisation
This is the fourth 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 fami ly doctor
whether he is in agreement or whether he
wishes to treat or refer the chi Id himself.
School Health Service
School Population
At the end of the year the maintained school
population was as shown below
Nursery schools and c lasses 180
Primary schools 18,051
Secondary modern schools 862
Grammar schools 1,903
Comprehensive schools 8,773
Special schools 592
Total 30,361
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 them The authority
may require the parent of any pupil in attendance
at such school to submit the pupi I 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 Pupils requiring follow-up
from previous medical inspections can also 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 8 748 and the results
are shown in Table 30 The physical condition of
179 (2 05%) 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 satis
factory 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 pupii 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
arranged
The examinations carried out during the year were
as follows:-
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