[Report 1969] / Medical Officer of Health, Nottinghamshire County Council.

  • Nottinghamshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1969
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1969] / Medical Officer of Health, Nottinghamshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    regard to the wishes of individual midwives and taking into account the minimum number of deliveries which a domiciliary midwife should undertake each year in order to maintain all her professional skills. In the early part of the year meetings of domiciliary midwives were arranged throughout the County in order to discuss new techniques and matters of policy, including rota systems which are now operating in most areas of the County. The purchase of additional radio equipment was deferred pending experi¬ ments with a new type of portable set which was brought out by the G.E.C. Company. These tests were most successful and it is proposed to purchase five of these sets, two of which will replace Bantam sets required for the Ambulance Service, during the 1970/71 financial year. As from the 1st September midwives undertook the investigation of the home circumstances of expectant mothers recommended for admission to hospital on sociological grounds. This duty was previously carried out by the Health Visitors but it was thought to be more appropriate for the midwives who would become better acquainted with the patient before the confinement and would be able to assess the suitability of the home where in many cases she would be working after the mother's early discharge from hospital. For the third successive year the Royal College of Midwives arranged a refresher course at the Nottingham University. Parties of midwives were allo¬ cated to this Authority on two days of the course and were taken on visits to the Psychiatric Day Centre, Sutton-in-Ashfield, and the Rainworth Adult Train¬ ing Centre, followed by talks by several specialist officers at County Hall. HEALTH VISITING (Section 2k) In the staffing details given at the end of this report it will be seen that at the end of 19&9 there were 90 Health Visitors in post, including 28 working on a part-time basis. Three of the Health Visitors were appointed following the successful completion of their training course under the Joint Training Scheme with the Nottingham Corporation. Eighty-seven officers under¬ took combined duties, i.e. work in the School Health Service in addition to Maternity and Child Health and General Health Visiting, and the equivalent of whole-time officers undertaking Section 2k duties was 52.8 as compared with 5^.8 in 1968 and 58.0 in 1967- This decline in the number of Health Visitors available for domiciliary visiting, together with the fixed sessions at Clinics, School Medical Inspections, etc., which necessarily involve a substantial proportion of Health Visitors' time (16607 sessions in 1989), and the effect of an increased number of attachments to general practices, accounted for the fall in the total number of home visits undertaken by Health Visitors shown in the statistics on page 77. Despite the overall decrease it is pleas¬ ing to record that the number of visits under General Health Visiting, i.e. mainly the more time-consuming visits to the elderly increased by 1738, indicating the changing pattern in a Health Visitor's duties, her services now being increasingly available, if required, to all members of the public. In accordance with the policy recommended by the Nurses' Committee of the Whitley Council, three Health Visitors attended refresher courses during the year, and one of the four Field Work Instructors undertook follow-up training. -20-