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89
HEALTH VISITING SERVICE
(Section 24)
Miss H. Townsend, Superintendent Health Visitor, reports that
the pattern of health visiting has been slowly changing during the
last ten years until today each health visitor is more adequately
covering the demands for her services from all age groups and from
a number of voluntary bodies, hospitals, family doctors and others.
The health visitor is often the first to observe signs of mental
ill-health or near breakdown in families on her district and also
behaviour problems in children. It may be necessary to arrange
more evening visits than formerly in order that each health visitor
is able to see working fathers and mothers or the whole family
together or single people in the evening or at other times when
they are more likely to be at home
Home visits by health visitors have risen slightly during the
year and more visits to the aged have been undertaken The
majority of visits to the aged have followed requests from almoners
and family doctors for the health visitor to see that there are
proper facilities for home care of the elderly people discharged
from hospital, to assess the ability of the person to manage after
having been discharged for some weeks or on account of the family
doctor's opinion that help is required Most of these requests
are made by telephone and the health visitor's report on each case
is given directly to the initiator by telephone also This method
works smoothly and avoids delay
Written health visitor's home reports have increased slightly
in response to requests chiefly from hospitals. These include
replies to enquiries as to whether mothers should be admitted for
hospital confinement on account of poor home conditions or for
other social reasons
Health Visitors' work in clinics of various kinds is well
known and is carried out with the usual efficiency
Special Investigations
During last year, as in former years, health visitors assisted
the Medical Research Council, the London County Council and other
bodies in the home visiting of persons included in specific
surveys who are resident in this Area
The incidence of the outbreak of smallpox in July caused a