[Report 1963] / School Medical Officer, Northamptonshire County Council.

  • Northamptonshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1963
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1963] / School Medical Officer, Northamptonshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/46 (page 7)
    A NEW APPROACH TO THE SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE During the past decade, increasing attention has been given both nationally and locally to the need for change in order to bring the whole concept of the School Health Service into line with the needs of today, which are radically different from those which applied when the Service came into being early in the present century. The following is taken from the report on the subject which was adopted by the Medical Inspection and Treatment Committee in September. The administrative side of the revised scheme was dealt with in the autumn and the whole plan should be brought into operation in the course of 1964. Re-organisation of School Health Service 1. Introduction The School Medical Service, as it was then called, was established over 50 years ago to deal with formidable medical problems. Gross ill-health was commonplace among children as a result of poor social conditions, ignorance, malnutrition, poverty and infectious diseases. The immediate objectives of the service were inevitably remedial and led to a pattern of work aimed at the detection of defects and the arranging of treatment. The past half century has brought about a dramatic change in the health of schoolchildren. Social and environmental improvements have combined with medical progress to alter the whole pattern of health and disease in childhood. Today the major diseases of the past have almost completely gone and schoolchildren are taller, heavier and healthier than ever before. 2. Present problems in child health Thus the conditions which led to the initiation of the school health service have passed into history and it is more than time for it to adapt itself to the needs of the present day for, despite the encouraging state of affairs outlined above, there are still many children who suffer from conditions liable to affect their health or to interfere with their education. These conditions include impaired hearing and vision, emotional and behaviour difficulties, and other physical and mental handicaps. The following figures for 1961 give some impression of the position: Defective vision or squint . Ear, nose and throat conditions Orthopaedic defects . Emotional disturbances . England and W ales 538,758 133,780 118,650 46,350 Northanls 959 606 1,011 214 Other factors, both medical and social, must also be remembered in relation to the present state of child health. One of these is earlier maturation ; today this is attained in girls at the average age of 13£, compared with 17 years at the beginning of the century, and this has happened during a time when the raising of the school leaving age has lengthened the period of dependency in adolescence. It is frequently alleged that there is evidence of increased sexual promiscuity amongst young people, and the schoolgirl mother is certainly not unknown. Another problem is the rise in delinquency in recent years, and here again there are medical, psychological and social factors involved. Such hazards as the 26,000 deaths per annum from lung cancer, mainly attributable to smoking, and the high incidence of foot deformities due to unsuitable shoes are likewise modern problems which must be tackled in childhood. There thus remains much scope for the school health service but, if it is to succeed, it must adapt itself to modern conditions.