[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Ealing].

  • Ealing (London, England). Council.
Date:
[1971?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Ealing]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Total visits to clinics 26,780 Teeth filled 21,711 Teeth extracted 6, 909 General anaesthetics 2,458 Emergencies 1, 144 Sessions devoted to treatment 4, 226 In March the School Dental Service was inspected by a dental officer of the Department of Education and Science. In the subsequent report which was received recommendations were made, amongst other things, as to equipment, forms of consent for treatment and improvement in natural lighting in one clinic. Most of the recommendations were already in hand before the report was received and the structural undertakings to improve lighting will be undertaken in 1971. In discussion during the visit we were urged to inspect more children at school and try not to devote as much time to re-inspecting children during the year for check-ups. Many parents expect their children to be seen regularly during the year and hope that appointments will be sent at four to six monthly intervals for check-ups. Except for children who are very caries-prone, the responsibility for appointments for re-inspection has had to be left to parental request and not sending for the children at regular intervals as a matter of course* It is a pity that we cannot have the same service for recall appointments as many private practitioners do but they only treat a proportion of children in their practices. Even so 13% of children treated for a first course had subsequent courses of treatment during the year and the routine inspections during 1970 show an increase of 31% over 1969. Altogether 1970 was a year of progress for the dental service particularly as a far greater measure of stability has been attained and it is hoped that this will be maintained. DENTAL HEALTH EDUCATION One aspect of the dental auxiliaries' work in dental health education, which has been found to be especially useful, is to give individual instruction at school dental inspections to those children whose dental hygiene is inadequate. These lessons are followed up after a couple of weeks to see what improvement has resulted. Our one auxiliary can only cover a limited area of activity, and her effort has to be used where the need seems greatest. Accordingly, among others, the children attending special schools have seemed especially in need of this extra care. Children do not seem to lack toothbrush and paste, this is now rarely the case, but they are too lax and ill-instructed in using them. PREVENTION OP INFECTIOUS DISEASE The School Health Service, in conjunction with the Council's other health services, is responsible for the control of all infectious disease in schools. Regulations as to infectious disease These Regulations are based on current Ministry of Health policy and set out the types of infectious disease together with exclusion periods. All head teachers have a copy. 39