View report page

SECTION 24: HEALTH VISITING.
At the 31st December 1951, the following staff were employed:-
(a) 15 Health Visitors employed full time on Health Visiting duties.
(b) 10 Health Visitor/School Nurses employed half-time on Health Visiting duties.
(c) 1 Health Visitor at Avenons Road Clinic (employed by South West Ham Health
Society).
The Council's scheme for the training of health visitors was continued throughout the
year, to maintain as far as possible the full strength of the service; 23 of the 25 personnel
included in (a) and (b) above were originally students sponsored through this scheme. In
this way the number of trained Health Visitors employed on maternity and child welfare duties
has been near the establishment of the equivalent of 22 full-time nurses throughout the year.
This has resulted in an improvement in the number of visits which each expectant mother and
child under 5 years has received.
Each child under 1 year of age received approximately 5 visits during his first year,
and children aged 1 - 5 years received between 2-3 visits per year. During 1950-51 there
has been a steady increase in the number of times which the Health Visitor has been able to
call on each child in her area. This has given her more frequent opportunity of observing
aad advising on the health and development of the children and of becoming acquainted with
the parents and the conditions under which the family lives. The above table also indicates
that a start has been made in combining the areas of the Health Visitors and School Nurses.
This means that one nurse will have the responsibility for the supervision of the development
of the child from birth to school age. Some progress has thus been made towards the Health
Visitor becoming the family adviser, as envisaged in the National Health Service Act.
The valuable link established in 195° between the health visiting service and two of
the hospitals to which West Ham children are admitted has been maintained throughout the year.
It has indeed been so rewarding and so greatly appreciated that it is hoped to make similar
arrangements with other hospitals.
In order to fulfil the need for close co-operation and understanding between the Health
Visitors and the staff of the Child Guidance Clinic, four joint meetings were arranged durlig
the year. The first three were in the form of talks to the Health Visitors and the Medical
Officers doing maternity and child welfare work, followed by discussion. The talks were given
by Dr.Rlordar., Medical Director of the clinic, Mrs.Nathan, Educational Psychologist and Miss
Holmes, Psychiatric Social Worker. They covered various aspects of the young child's mental
and emotional development. The fourth meeting took the form of a conference at the Child
Guidance Clinic which was attended by the clinic staff, including many of the Medical Officers,
and to which the Health Visitors and the doctors engaged in maternity and child welfare work
were Invited. The clinic staff gave summaries of the case histories of some typical cases
referred from the Maternity and Child Welfare clinics during the previous year, and they outlined
the ways In which the children1s difficulties had been dealt with. These case histories
served as a basis for a discussion on the selection of cases for reference to the Child Guidance
"llnic, and also the ways In which the Maternity and Child Welfare staff could help the parents
of those young children who showed slight disturbances of behaviour not sufficiently serious
to warrant specialist treatment.
37