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88
Report of Tuberculosis Officer—continued.
Notes on Table 1.
In a circular issued at the end of the year the Minister of
Health desired that cases in London which were accepted for
Institutional Treatment by the London County Council on recommendations
sent to them from hospitals or sources other than the
Dispensary should be included in the Dispensary Register even
though never seen at the Dispensary. Accordingly 22 cases
accepted in 1929, and 53 cases of other years are included under
headings A, B, D.
A difficulty arises in this connection as sufficient information
is not always given by the London County Council when bringing a
case to the notice of the Tuberculosis Officer to enable him to classify
correctly. In one such case accepted recently for treatment in
sanatorium, no notification of Tuberculosis had been received by
us. On writing to the hospital where the case originated we were
informed that the case had not been considered tuberculous.
The slightly smaller number of attendances at the Dispensary
is largely accounted for by a more strict adherence to the Ministry of
Health Memorandum which pointed out that insured patients, having
panel doctors, should in the ordinary course obtain their nonresidential
treatment from the panel doctor, and that unless
referred by their doctor to the Dispensary, their attendance once
yearly for examination at the Dispensary should suffice, the panel
doctor having the duty to send a report quarterly to the Tuberculosis
Officer.
If the patient comes of his own accord to the Dispensary
when a report is due from his doctor, that report is not as a rule
asked for.
Many patients who have just had institutional treatment and
who progress satisfactorily do not keep regularly under the eye of
their doctor though it is pointed out to them that their disease
is not cured even though they have done well at sanatorium and
that it is important they go regularly to the doctor until he tells