View report page

32
community care. It is hoped with the increase in staff, that a complete
analysis can be carried out on the caseloads so that each case will be given
the assistance needed. Statutory work also increased considerably. Home
visits by consultant psychiatrists were 171 as compared with 154 in 1968.
Admissions to hospital totalled 218. The majority of the cases are admitted
to Long Grove Hospital; only a small fraction are sent to Hackney Hospital.
Centres
The three Day Centres have been fully occupied during the year. There
is, however, a change in the trend of referral. The patients who it is
thought might recover fairly quickly are not referred in such numbers as
before possibly because they are being trained in the industrial units at the
hospitals. This results in an accumulation of chronic patients in the Centres
who cannot be trained to work in the open market and they tend to block the
number of admissions to Centres. This is not a problem specific to Hackney;
most local authorities experience a similar problem.
The number of people admitted to the Day Centres was 40. Clifton Lodge
Rehabilitation Centre is geared to industrial rehabilitation. This year 7
clients were found places in open industry and 12 were re-admitted to hospital.
The Junior Training Centre has been functioning well in spite of the
continuous demand. There was a waiting list of 27 children needing admission
at the end of the year. One of the classrooms contains a special care unit
for children below the age of 5. This room is much needed now for the ordinary
work at the centre and it is planned to construct a new special care unit of
25 places in the grounds of the existing training centre.
During the year an informative film was produced by a member of the staff
showing all the activities of the centre, both at work and relaxation.
The activities of the Adult Training Centre remain unchanged. A total of
111 people aged 16 to 65 attend, 62 men and 49 women. The work carried out
is similar to occupational therapy activities, the men working on the ground
floor and the women on the first floor. They all have their meals together.
Social and academic instruction is given to 100 persons by one specially
trained instructor. This provides about VA hours weekly per person and this
is hardly enough if these people are to be trained to be integrated in the
community. No mentally handicapped person attained a place in the open market
during the year.
In my Annual Report for 1968 I stated that the provision of more special
care units was one of the most urgent priorities. This has now come to the
fore acutely as there is now a waiting list of 12 children for the special
care unit at Ickburgh Road and 15 children to the unit at Millfields. All
those on the waiting list are living in the community. Pour of the children
at Millfields are from Eastern Hospital. The older children admitted to
Millfields Special Care Unit have reached the age of 16 years. They take up
much space and are difficult to handle by the staff. This problem will become
accentuated with the course of time and some alternative facility will have
to be provided.
The Special Care Unit at Millfields which was opened in 1966 to serve an
immediate need has been developed into a unit with a very good atmosphere by
the devoted staff in spite of shortage of space and sanitary facilities. The
unit has been an undoubted success for the children have been trained to walk
and keep clean but the difficulties in running a unit of this kind in adapted
premises have become more obvious as the children have grown up. The layout
of the unit is causing great difficulty and inconvenience for the children
and staff. There is only one toilet so that children of all ages have to be
potted in the same room where they have their ordinary activities. Plans are
in hand, however, to expand the unit to the ground floor of the next cottage
and to install more toilets in the original unit.