[Report 1965] / Medical Officer of Health, Hertfordshire County Council.

  • Hertfordshire (England). County Council. n 50062101.
Date:
1965
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1965] / Medical Officer of Health, Hertfordshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    108/110 (page 104)
    Although the training and educational facilities here are limited by the restricted accommodation, a promising start has been made and the Centre certainly helps to meet the urgent needs in Mid Herts until the permanent adult centre is built on the other side of the town in two to three years time. The mental health social workers are based at Hatfield and Potters Bar pending the opening of the Parkway Health Centre in the summer of 1966. This fragmentation of the social services with some workers based at the Divisional Health Office and others at peripheral centres is the inevitable result of piecemeal development, but will, it is hoped, shortly be replaced by a more co-ordinated social work unit as a major part of the Divisional Administration Scheme. The Home Help Service now maintains a team of some seventy-five Helps serving the needs of about 325 persons in Mid Hertfordshire. The demand for help in the home, particularly for the elderly is now regularly in excess of the service available, and this position will undoubtedly persist as the pool of women available for recruitment into the service is limited and periodic recruitment drives merely maintain the present position. Eleven Senior Helps attended the Divisional Training Course at Hatfield in the autumn and joined in discussions on the social services, special needs of the elderly and families with poor home standards and the domiciliary care of mentally handicapped persons, while one or two selected Helps also attended more advanced courses arranged by the Central Department. Report of Dr. V. R. Walker, Divisional Medical Officer, North Herts. Nursing Staff.—Frequently this has given the impression of being fully extended and the recently authorized policy of attachment of staff to medical practices must cause additional demands on nursing time. In Stevenage New Town, with its much higher-than-average proportion of infants and children, health visiting staff seem at times fully stretched. In the Hitchin area there has been, during the year, insufticiently available district nurse/midwife staff, partly occasioned by staff illness ; also in Hitchin the health visiting services have been seriously disrupted by longer periods of staff illness. In Letchworth the attachment of nurses and midwives to group practices was effected at the end of the 3^ear, additional to the previous attachment of health visitors. A night nursing service has been successfully working in this division during the year with a nursing staff of two, who of course cannot be kept continuously engaged on night work ; it is hoped to increase staff for such service to three State Enrolled nurses to avoid excessive travelling within the division. Nurseries and Child Minding.—The year 1965 has seen a tremendous development throughout the division in the formation of Play Groups of pre- school children, both privately and by voluntary societies. Also there has been a considerable increase in the registration of child minders taking small groups for reward into their own homes. The registration and advising of such groups has occasioned a greatly increased volume of investigatory work falling on the divisional nursing officer. Home Help Service.—While the public demand for such services is almost unlimited, difficulties in recruitment require a thin spreading of available staff over cases requiring service. Some areas (as Letchworth) seem on balance to require importation of service but there are limits on the capacity of home helps to travel much distance. With a chronic shortage of recruits to the service arrangement of a “ good neighbour service fills the gap, particularly where the receiving family can assist in the selection of an ad hoc appointed helper, where the domicile is isolated, or where there is need for service at odd hours early and late in the day. Certain cases would greatly benefit from a “ night sitter ” service if only