[Report 1955] / Medical Officer of Health, County of the Soke of Peterborough.

  • Peterborough (England). County Council.
Date:
1955
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1955] / Medical Officer of Health, County of the Soke of Peterborough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    23/46 (page 21)
    SECTION 24—Health Visiting The Local Health Authority’s establishment allows for six full-time health visitors (including one employed wholly as a tuberculosis health visitor) and during the year the approved establishment was fully made up. The following is a summary of visits paid by the health visitors during the year 1955: — (a) Home Visits: Number of children under 5 years of age visited during the year . Expectant mothers Children under 1 year of age . Children aged 1 but under 2 years Children aged 2 but under 5 years Tuberculosis Households . Other cases 1 otal number of families or households visited by health visitors Tuberculosis health visitor; Total visits paid to tuberculosis households Total number of families or households visited by Health Visitors • • ••• ••• ••• (b) Clinics: Total number of attendances made by health visitors at local health authority clinic sessions during the year Total number of attendances by whole-time tuberculosis visitor at chest clinic sessions during the year . First visits Total visits 231 1,081 4,171 293 2,906 1,239 3,495 9 1,839 7,927 2,013 9,940 517 252 In this Authority fruitless visits are not included in the statistical returns. The number of “fruitless visits’’ (i.e., when no one can be found at home, wrong address, etc.), paid by health visitors in 1955, was 760. Five of the health visitors (including the tuberculosis health visitor) have cars, and are classed as “essential users.’’ In addition to attendance at welfare clinics and visiting expectant and nursing mothers and young children, the health visitors (usually the Superin¬ tendent Nuising Officer) investigate the home conditions of women whose con¬ finement in hospital is recommended on social grounds, patients discharged from hospital, certain senile and chronic sick persons, etc. With the modern interest of the general public in what is widely termed health education nowadays, the health visitor is the mainstay of the preventive health services. She is the family adviser, calling on and being called in to the household at all times, filling that vital gap in which there is no sickness ot note, when the general practitioner is not always filling the families' need, perhaps, for advice and guidance. This development, anticipated in the 1946 Act, has greatly enlarged the scope of the work of the Health Visitor who, in the past was considered an infant welfare worker only, and has, of course, meant many more calls on the Service.