[Report 1962] / Medical Officer of Health, North Riding of Yorkshire County Council.

  • North Riding of Yorkshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1962
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1962] / Medical Officer of Health, North Riding of Yorkshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/80 (page 20)
    Training. The County Council altered its basis of payments during health visitor training. Six to eight trainees are appointed each year at f of the commencing salary of a certificated health visitor and sign an agreement to serve in the North Riding for two years after receiving this training payment for an academic year. Even this re-alignment has not been fully successful in filling vacancies in the industrial areas : in my view London weighting should be given to salaries of the health visitors working in congested urban areas. As in previous years, facilities have been afforded to trainees at the Bolton Technical College to obtain a week’s experience of work in rural areas. Liaison with General Medical Practitioners and Hospitals. It is not usually possible to allocate the services of a health visitor solely to one medical practice. Close liaison exists in some parts of the Riding but there is scope for improvement in others : this form of co-operation is encouraged where practicable. The extent to which “ follow up ” of patients discharged from hospitals depends largely upon each hospital supplying the necessary information. Requests, when made, receive prompt attention : it is vital that some days’ notice be given by hospital staff if a special bed or other non-standard equipment is required for the proper home nursing of seriously disabled patients. HOME NURSING SERVICE. When the County Council took over the home nursing service from district nursing associations in July, 1948, it was decided to employ whole-time home nurses in the urban areas. Following the changed pattern of midwifery, it has become the practice to appoint doubly qualified nurses to undertake combined duties in these districts. On 31-12-62 there were 22 whole-time home nurses, 21 part-time home nurses, 30 nurses (and 7 part-time) undertaking midwifery and home nursing, and in the rural districts 57 nurses (and 3 part-time) were undertaking duties of a generalised character : home nurses have worked very well with the general practitioners and complaints regarding them are rare. The main types of cases attended by home nurses are medical, surgical and tuber¬ culosis cases. There is no night nursing service as such, although many nurses do an evening round ; a night nursing service does not seem practicable or justifiable in an area which is mainly rural. During the year under review 24,217 patients received domiciliary visits to the total number of 191,719 and an analysis of these patients is set out below. Infec- Maternal Type of Case Medical Surgical tious diseases Tuber¬ culosis compli¬ cations Others Total Number of cases 19,036 4,551 9 543 48 30 24,217 Number of visits 146,310 31,943 30 9,365 655 3,416 191,719 Of the total patients 3,045 were over the age of 65 at the date of the first visit and 94,418 (an increase of 8% on the preceding year) visits were made to elderly patients. In addition 2,401 visits were made to 465 children who were under the age of 5 at the first visit.