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SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE
School Population® There was a further increase in the school population during
the year® On 31st December, 1948 there were 26,507 children on the school rolls, as
compared with 25,673 on the corresponding day of 1947.
The increase since 1945 is rather more than 6,000.
Medical Inspection. A table setting out the work done under this heading will be
found on page 68. . The volume of work carried out was much the same as the year
before.
It is at school inspections and in the Minor Ailments Clinics that most of the
physical defects are found in the children: early treatment or prompt advice to parents
combined with efficient follow up procedure permits rectification before the conditions
found have progressed too far to be easily remedied.
Since the middle of the year when the National Health Service Act came into operation
there has been a falling off in attendance at the Minor Ailments Clinics, doubtless because
the children may now be treated by their private doctors without cost to themselves. The
decline has not been severe and it is as yet too early to Judge the effect of the new Act on
the School Health Service. However it may influence the volume of minor ailments coming to
the school clinics, it in no way relieves the Local Education Authority of the duty of providing
for the medical inspection of school children and for making arrangements for their
medical treatment.
THE WORK OP THE SCHOOL NURSES
NUTRITION® Nutritional surveys continued to be carried out by the school nurses
throughout the year® The nurse weighs and measures the child and compares the result with the
last assessments at the same time she notes the child's general condition. If the child's
progress is not considered satisfactory the case is referred to the area school doctor for
investigatipn. Owing to the pressure of work in other directions it was not found possible to
cover the whole of the school population during the year, though it is aimed to carry this out
more frequently as soon as conditions permit.
NUTRITION SURVEYS
Number of inspections l8,424
Referred to school doctors (malnutrition) 5
Referred to school doctors (other conditions)
Scabies 4
Eye conditions 4
Skin diseases 20
Ear defects 2
Nose and Throat defects 5
Hygiene 7
Other conditions 36
Total 78
47