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28
other local authority staff working from premises where integration
is possible.
Benefits of
Health Centres
The benefits to public health of a closer co-operation are
a clearer understanding by general practitioners of the benefits
of preventive medicine and the fact that a large segment of the
popnlation not previously easily accessible to public health
will now become accessible. This will extend the range of
public health outside the mother and young child, the school
child and the elderly, who have hitherto been our main preoccupation.
The general practitioner will of course benefit in
a number of cases from better premises and more help, both
para-medical and clerical. In any case the patient, to whom
all this change is directed, will benefit from a better service.
It may be that if Health Centres come to be the main form of
practice premises that the patient will have to travel further
to consult his doctor, but with the increasing use of appointment
systems, the increased distance travelled will be counterbalanced
by a shorter wait to see his family doctor.
Specialist
Services
Unity of
Health Service
Specialist services have always been provided in some
Redbridge clinics but these have been largely ophthalmic and
orthopaedic for the use of infants and schoolchildren. A possible
extension to adult patients would be a mixed blessing
because many specialist services rely on sophisticated and
complicated apparatus which can only logically be situated in
a hospital. The aim, therefore, must be to forge an even closer
link with the hospital service so that for the first time in the
history of the National Health Service the three parts, hospital
and specialist, general practice and public health, can function
as one and not as isolated fragments.
SECTION 22
CARE OF MOTHERS AND YOUNG CHILDREN
(by Dr. W. H. Toms, B.M., Ch.B.(Edin),
Principal Medical Officer)
Clinics
In Redbridge we have a nucleus of four purpose built
Clinics where infant welfare centres are held. In addition
infant welfare clinics take place in many hired and adapted
buildings. These vary greatly in the amenities they offer —
some of these are of high standard while at the other
end of the spectrum some of our Staff work in halls which