[Report 1958] / School Medical Officer of Health, Sheffield City.

  • Sheffield (England). City Council.
Date:
1958
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1958] / School Medical Officer of Health, Sheffield City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/90 (page 7)
    CITY OF SHEFFIELD EDUCATION COMMITTEE SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE To the Chairman and Members of the Education Committee. I have the honour to present for your consideration the report on the work of the School Health Service for the year ended 31st December, 1958. Dr. Marion Taylor retired at the end of August. In taking over the mantle of Principal School Medical Officer I am deeply conscious of my in¬ debtedness to Dr. Taylor and her predecessors, under whose guidance the School Health Service has evolved over a period of some fifty years. Great changes have occurred over the years. The circumstances which brought the service into being are largely of the past but, in the meanwhile, new fields of responsibility have been recognised. As the original problems which faced the Service were surmounted, the outlook has broadened. First school children were given advantages of diagnostic and treatment facilities which at the time were not generally available. Later, as this need became less prominent, the school health service has tended to concentrate more on the ascertainment of disabilities, particularly with a view to selecting children for special educational treatment. Although still a health service to promote the education of children, it is now essentially part of a larger conception. As the relationship between the school health and other health services has come to the fore, it may be helpful to briefly review changes in emphasis that have already occurred since the advent of the National Health Service. Since 1948 attendances at school clinics have been falling steadily, and this is particularly true of children attending for the treatment of minor ailments. It is apparent that many children who formerly attended a school clinic are now taken for treatment to the family doctor. The School Health Service is essentially a preventive service and, while diagnosis and early treatment may prevent permanent disability, most people would agree that it is not the function of an education service to provide medical treatment if it can readily be obtained through the National Health Service. There are some forms of treatment for which little provision has been made outside the School Health Service, notably speech therapy, child guidance and chiropody. Speech therapy has developed to such an extent that in the past ten years clinic attendances have been doubled. There has been some expansion of the Child Guidance Service but, as in many other parts of the country,