[Report 1917] / Medical Officer of Health, Gloucestershire County Council.

  • Gloucestershire (England). County Council. n 50061360.
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1917] / Medical Officer of Health, Gloucestershire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/46 (page 11)
    report it appears that there were then 26 centres in the County (3 in Cheltenham) of which eight were started during 1918. Several of these are very modest in character but all appear to be doing useful work, and the County Council decided to make a small grant towards the expenses of each centre with a view to encouraging their improvement and development. The shortage of doctors has made it difficult to secure their regular attendance, but they have been most helpful in many places and, when they can not he present at the centres, have agreed to see children referred from centres at their surgeries. Provision or Midwifery Assistance. It has not proved practicable to do so much as was hoped in the way of providing midwifery assistance in places without certified midwives, partly owing to the difficulty in obtaining nurses and also suitable candidates for training, and partly to lack of response from unprovided localities. With a view to * making training more attractive, the County Nursing Associa- tion have slightly improved the conditions of training, and efforts have been made, with some measure of success, to render the salaries paid to district nurses more commensurate with the positions they should occupy. The County Council have* assisted the County Nursing Association by considerably in- creasing the grant made to their funds. The Council have further agreed to contribute towards the expenses of starting and maintaining new District Nursing Associations. As a result of these combined efforts, in spite of the number of unprovided parishes being increased by 12 owing to four un- affiliated Associations being given up, the total number was increased only from 55 at the end of 1916 to 63 at the end of 1917. During 1918 this number has been reduced by 12 to 51 mainly from the formation of 4 District Nursing Associa- tions . Payment of the Fees of Medical Practitioners called in by Certified Midwives. With a view to removing difficulty in securing skilled assist- ance, the County Council decided on the 7tli January, 1918, to pay the fees of medical practitioners, whose assistance is re- quired by certified mid wives, in accordance with a fixed scale; this was later revised and is now in great measure that recom- mended by the British Medical Association.