[Report 1955] / School Medical Officer of Health, West Sussex County Council.

  • West Sussex (England). County Council.
Date:
1955
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1955] / School Medical Officer of Health, West Sussex County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/32 (page 3)
    Health Visiting and infant welfare centre records of all children, when they reach school age, are transferred to the School Health Service Department. SCHOOL HYGIENE During the year representations were made to the Director of Education in respect of defects relating to lavatory accommodation (10), washing facilities (2), sanitation (2), heating (l), water supply (l). The question of unsuitable furniture (l) was also referred to the Director of Education. The Borough School Medical Officer, Worthing, made repre¬ sentations to the Borough Education Officer in respect of defects relating to sanitation (2), water supplies (2), heating (l) and lavatory accommo¬ dation (l). MEDICAL INSPECTION Three routine medical inspections are prescribed by the Ministry of Education but discretion as to the ages to be inspected is left to the Authority. The Authority may also arrange additional routine medical inspections, and in West Sussex a child is examined four times in his school life, viz., as an entrant (5-7 years), at 8, 11 and 14 years of age. Also, children remaining at a Secondary Grammar School until a later age have an additional inspection, or if they are there until the age of i8, two additional inspections. With a few exceptions, the same Medical Officer inspects the same schools, each year. As far as possible two visits were paid in the year to each school to complete the routine inspections, the examine,tion of special cases, and the re-examination of pupils previously found or suspected to have some disease or defect. Owing to lack of accommodation in the older schools it has become increasingly necessary to use premises other than schools for medical inspections. In Tables I (a) and I (b) (Page l6) are given the number of routine medical examinations in the various age groups, the special examinations and re-examinations. The examination of handicapped pupils is not in¬ cluded in these figures. Table I (c) shows the number of pupils found at the periodic medical inspection to require treatment: the percentage of pupils requiring treatment being 8.5 compared with 9.6 in 1954? 9*4 in 1953, 9.7 in 1952, 10.5 in 1951? and 12.5 in 1950. With reference to Table II (b) (page l8 ) it will be seen that the general condition of 52.57% of the pupils examined was Good, 46.61% Fair? and 0.82% Poor1’. The Table below gives the percentages for years 1947 to 1955. It will be noted that the upward trend in the general condition of pupils was maintained during the year. Table A. Year A (Good) B (Fair) C (Poor) 1947 19.87 68.73 11.40 1948 21.60 69.15 9.24 1949 24.13 68.69 7.17 1950 27.54 67.81 4.65 1951 35.33 61.42 3.24 1952 41.83 55.34 2.82 1953 46.25 52.12 1.63 1954 47.40 51.35 1.24 1955' 52.57 46.0I 0.82