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MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH SECTION
INTRODUCTION
1958, Ten years after the introduction of the National Health Service, may be an
opportune moment at which to look back over the work of the Maternal and Child Health
Section since 1948 and forward to the developments planned for the future.
The term Maternal and Child Health is a new one as applied to the joint Maternal
and Child Welfare and School Health Services of the Borough, and implies closer integration
of the personal health services for mothers and for children of all ages. The nursing
services are also included here, Midwivery naturally belongs to the Maternal and Child
Health and health visiting is still very largely concerned with the young family. The
home nursing services is included as a matter of administrative convenience.
The health visiting and school nursing services have been combined for some years,
but so far there has only been slight overlapping of the duties of the assistant medical
officers, though the principle has been accepted. There has been no combination of the
duties of the senior medical officers of the two sections or of the administrative and
olerical staffs.
When the Chief Assistant School Medical Officer retired at the end of 1957 the
Senior Medical Officer for Maternity and Child Welfare was asked to undertake the
administrative responsibility for the two Sections, with the help of an assistant
medical officer appointed for the purpose.
The clerical staff were brought together under an Administrative Assistant Tor
Maternal and Child Health and his Deputy. During the year, as the staff have worked
side by side, opportunities have arisen for rationalising and streamlining their duties.
This should lead to greater efficiency and perhaps stimulate greater interest in their
work. For example, one officer now does the work related to handicapped children of all
ages and so become familiar with the circumstances of the child and his family from his
earliest days until his school days are over.
It is less easy to give each of the six full time clinical medical officers an
equal share of the work of the two Sections because they are not equally qualified and
experienced in all branches of the work, for example in the work of ante-natal clinics,
which is still considerable. Nevertheless it is hoped that during the next two to three
years each medical officer will gradually extend the range of his or her duties.
The introduction to the part of this report which deals with the School Health
Service discusses the effect of the National Health Service on the School Health Service,
while the sections of the report which refer to the nursing services draw attention to
some of the changes which have occurred in the past decade.
The implementation of the extended duties of the health visitors envisaged in the
National Health Service Act has fortunately been made possible by an increase from five
qualified health visitors in 1948, to twenty two in 1958 plus three tuberculosis health
visitors and a superintendent health visitor, though we have never yet achieved a full
establishment.
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