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The contribution of the School Health Service to social medicine.
The sphere of influence of the School Health Service spreads for beyond the school into
the community. The service is particularly well placed to help both children and their
parents. The school nurses and health visitors visit the homes and families of the children
and become thoroughly acquainted with them. The school doctors meet the parents in schools
and clinics and at the clinics they can spend a sufficient amount of time investigating the
problems of individual children; they have the great advantage of knowing about the home
life from the health visitor, and of his work and behaviour in school from the teachers.
Furthermore, they have the services provided by the local education authority and of the
National Health Service.
This account of the welfare of schoolchildren can suitably be closed by quoting a
Principal School Medical Officer at the close of a long career in local government service,
"After a long experience in the public health service, which I suppose gives one some right
to assess relative values, I have no hesitation in saying that in the whole local government
public health service no single branch is of greater importance to, and has played a greater
part in, the building up of the health of children and young people of this country than the
School Health Service in its many branches."
Medical Inspection Rooms.
The Standards for School Premises Regulations, 1954, do not specify separate accommodation
for medical inspection purposes, merely requiring that suitable accommodation shall be
immediately available at any time during school hours for the inspection of pupils by medical
officers, dental officers and nurses. The accommodation for such inspection shall be well and
suitably lighted and heated, and should be conveniently accessible to a closet, and every room
provided for such purposes shall Include a wash-basin with a supply of hot and cold water.
In a number of the older schools medical rooms are not available, and consequently
inspections have to be carried out in classrooms, school libraries, film or other rooms.
Every effort is made to make the parents, children and medical staff comfortable. In the newer
schools a medical suite is included. The standards for School Premises Regulations have
sometimes been criticised for hot prescribing a medical room for new schools, but the Ministry
have stated that the Regulations could not in any sense be held to condone unsatisfactory
conditions.
The purpose of the school medical Inspection is not merely the detection of physical
defects in the child. It gives an opportunity of gaining the confidence of the parent and
child, but to ensure this it is essential that the interview should be carried out in a quiet,
unhurried, efficient manner, in surroundings that enable the doctor, nurse, parent and child
to give their attention to one another. The Interview is confidential and the surroundings
should ensure that it remains so. Generally speaking, the conditions in most of the schools
are quite satisfactory.
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