[Report 1969] / Medical Officer of Health, Parts of Kesteven / Kesteven County Council (Lincolnshire).

  • Kesteven (England). County Council.
Date:
1969
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1969] / Medical Officer of Health, Parts of Kesteven / Kesteven County Council (Lincolnshire). Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/102 (page 4)
    There were further increases in the number of premises registered as day nurseries and the number of persons registered as child minders under the Nurseries and Child Minders Regulation Act 1948. The recruitment of supervisory nursing staff and speech therapists remained difficult throughout the year. It is pleasing to record that for the first time for some years the number of health visitors recruited exceeded the number who retired. The tendency for mothers to be delivered of their babies in hospital continued, as did the tendency for an increased number of mothers and their babies to be discharged from hospital before the tenth day to the care of the domiciliary midwifery service. The home nurses again assisted with the nursing of an increased number of very severely disabled patients at home. Great demands were again made on the Home Help Service but economies were achieved in the running of the service without detriment to those receiving help. The increasing centralisation of hospital facilities and provision of day facilities by the hospitals, together with the need to transport increased numbers of handicapped persons to day centres in the com¬ munity were factors which resulted in increased usage of the Ambulance Service. There was another increase in the number of voluntary clubs operating the chiropody service and a ten per cent increase in the number of treatments given during the year. Fewer women availed themselves of the facilities provided by the Authority for them to have cervical smears taken. I would urge women, particularly those over the age of thirty-five years, to avail themselves of this service for by so doing they could reduce the number of deaths from uterine cancer in subsequent years. The development of the mental health service continued and in September a special care unit was opened at Sandon School, Grantham. At the end of the year one hundred and twenty-two mentally subnormal persons living in Kesteven were attending junior and adult training centres at either Grantham or Lincoln. The health of the schoolchildren was again satisfactory. There was a further increase in the number of schools with their own swimming baths, and I make no apologies for once again stressing the need for swimming bath water to be adequately chlorinated and filtered and in the interests of safety for the avoidance of over¬ crowding and excessive usage of the baths.