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6.1.5 Because of the reduction in midwifery work, only part of the former approved
establishment has been recruited — two senior midwives and six midwives. Pour posts of
domiciliary midwife have been deleted from the establishment. Camden midwives' domiciliary
coverage continued on a 24-hour basis, with a rota system operating overnight for
which emergency cover was complemented by staff working primarily as home nurses but
qualified as midwives and designated as home nurse-midwife.
6.1.6 The standard of the midwifery pack which is supplied to patients who have
their babies at home has been vastly improved. Maximum advantage has been taken of
available sophisticated sterile disposable equipment, making unnecessary the archaic
process of domestic boiling of bowls, dressings, etc. Our midwifery equipment and
techniques have been pronounced by an officer of the Central Midwives Board (among
others) to be at least as good as, if not better than, that employed in modern hospital
obstetric units.
MIDWIVES ACT, 1951
6.2.1 The arrangements whereby the supervisory functions under the Midwives Act,
1951 were carried out by the Council's non-medical supervisor and her two assistants
were modified during 1968. Miss F.G. Craddock was appointed Principal Nursing Officer
to take charge of all the nursing services in the borough.

HEALTH SERVICES AND PUBLIC HEALTH ACT, 1968
6.3 Greater Flexibility in the midwifery service was introduced by the Health
Services and Public Health Act, 1968 whereby local authorities are enabled to engage
midwives to render midwifery service elsewhere than in the patients' homes. This in
practice means that local health authorities can now employ domiciliary midwives, who,
in addition to attending women at home, can assist at general practitioners'surgeries and
practise midwifery in hospital. With the trend of decreasing home confinements, the future
pattern seems likely to be that midwives will be increasingly concerned with patients
discharged from hospital on the second day, and in due course it may be possible to pool
staff resources with adjoining local authorities and/or with hospitals in the borough. The
new Act opens up the possibility of domiciliary midwives working with general practitioner
obstetricians in a unit attached to a maternity hospital.
TRAINING
6.4 During the four three-monthly training cycles completed in each of the years
1967 and 1968, 16 and 13 pupil midwives respectively from St. Mary's Paddington
(Harrow Road) Hospital (formerly Paddington General Hospital) completed their district
training under the supervision of five Camden midwives who are approved as midwife
teachers. The number of hospital student nurses who accompanied student midwives on
observation visits increased from 81 in 1967 to 102 in 1968. Nine midwives attended
refresher courses during 1967 and eleven in 1968.
PREMATURE BABIES
7.1 During 1967, 256 babies were born who weighed 5Vfelb. or less at birth, this
being the accepted criterion for prematurity: of these, 226 survived. In 1968, 241 survived
out of 270 prematurely born.
7.2 Of those born at home, 4 babies in 1967 and 17 in 1968 were cared for by the
Council's domiciliary midwives for the full statutory period of 28 days. Six were transferred
to hospital and one diea after admission.
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