[Report 1971] / School Medical Officer of Health, Sheffield City.

  • Sheffield (England). City Council.
Date:
1971
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1971] / School Medical Officer of Health, Sheffield City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    REORGANISATION OF THE SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE ? ‘I know just how to cure the world and make it safe and stable; but I haven't time to do it, and those that have aren't able' Leverett Lyon Discussion documents on the future of the health services have appeared regularly since the first green paper of 1967, but only the scantiest reference has been made to the school health service. The second green paper listed the school health service as among the services to be administered by the area health authorities, but reserved judgment on the question of where responsibility for the child guidance service should be. In May, 1971, the Consultative Document appeared to put the whole of the school health service back in limbo by saying that future arrangements would require special consideration. Two months later the Scottish White Paper envisaged medical and dental examination and treatment becoming the responsibility of the health authority, but recognised that education authorities would continue to have a strong and continuing interest in the services provided: the child guidance service and the provision of speech therapy in schools would remain the responsibility of the education authority. Currently a sub¬ committee of a Working Party on Collaboration is considering the future of the school health service in England and Wales and presumably its conclusions will be published in due course. Despite the reticence of official health sources, the Plowden Report (1967), on ‘Children and their Primary Schools’ gives some insight into thinking among educationalists, not so much on who does what, but on what should be done. It was considered that the responsibility of the school health service was to see that school children are not denied through un¬ recognised or untreated ill-health the opportunity to make the most of what school can offer; and to enable the educational systems to be adapted and modified to the needs and capacities of the child. School medical inspection enables unsuspected defects to be detected and incipient maladies checked at their onset, and furnishes the facts which will guide education authorities in relation to physical and mental development during school life. The function of the school health service is primarily preventive and advisory, and the improved facilities for treatment provided by the National Health Service means that the school health service should take up the challenge presented by the various environmental factors that disturb the development and learning of the children. The Report finds it disquieting that an assessment is seldom made before the child goes to school, except when there is a severe mental or physical disability. Thus it is not possible to attempt any modification of the educational environment until after the child has been exposed to the risk of failure at an exceedingly vulnerable stage of life. However,