[Report 1967] / Medical Officer of Health, Hertfordshire County Council.

  • Hertfordshire (England). County Council. n 50062101.
Date:
1967
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1967] / Medical Officer of Health, Hertfordshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    146/150 (page 144)
    Junior Training Centre—Special Care and Nursery Unit. An extension to the Junior Training Centre was opened in May, for mentally handicapped children requiring special care or nursery training. The special care children selected are doubly handicapped, with a physical as well as a mental handicap, and usually are children whose defects are severe enough for admission to a hospital for mentally subnormal children, but whose parents wish to care for them at home. It was to help the parents in their care of such sorely handicapped children that the special care unit was established. Any treatment that the children require, comes from the family doctor, with whom a close link is maintained. The nursery unit caters for children under 5 years who are unlikely to be accepted in a primary school because of mental retardation. These children will probably progress to the Junior Training Centre, in the same way as other children progress from nursery school to primary school. Each unit has 10 places and the children attend full-time or part-time, depending on their age, needs and parents’ wishes. Physically, the two units are combined, and provided with a bathroom, showers, toilets, laundry, and medical inspection room. Special staff have been engaged at the ratio of one to every five children. Transport to and from the unit depends on the child’s disability. In general, those requiring special care come escorted in an ambulance, while those who are more physically fit, travel on the usual centre coach-transport, under escort and with suitable restraining harness as a safety measure. An Assessment Panel was set up to assess each child’s needs on admission and to review these needs in the light of subsequent attendance at the unit. Depending on the progress of each child, movement from special care to nursery unit, from ambulance transport to coach transport and increases in overall attendance have been agreed with the parents from time to time. Great attention has been paid to a good parent/unit relationship for the success of the unit depends, not only upon the efforts of the staff, but also on the confidence of the parents in its management. In only one case, has a child been withdrawn from the unit by the parents and this was because of circum- stances at home. The parents remained most grateful for the help given. At the end of the year, there were 12 children attending the special care unit, 4 full-time and 8 part-time. 12 children also attended the nursery unit, 6 of these full-time and 6 part-time. It has so far been possible to meet all requests for attendance within the division and no child has been excluded from attendance, which is a tribute to the staff and their relationship with the parents of these unfortunate children. Medicines with Care Campaign. The extent of poisoning in the home from the ingestion of medicines is far greater than is generally appreciated. In adults, for example, acute poisoning accounts for approximately 10 per cent of all medical admissions to hospital; in children, about 3 per cent of all medical admissions are due to accidental poisoning. Hoarding in one form or another is almost a national trait, and hoarding of drugs either wilfulfy or thoughtlessly is particularly common. On the other hand, the fewer the medicaments in the home, the less chance there is of accidental poisoning. To endeavour to overcome the habit of hoarding and thus to lessen or prevent the risk of poisoning in the home, the “ Medicines with Care ” campaign was launched at the end of February. Three main dangers were publicised. They are :— 1. The rapid deterioration of medicines under unfavourable conditions, often leading to a loss of potency and even, in certain antibiotics, to the forma- tion of toxic products.