Health Service Commissioner : first report for session 1978-79 : investigations completed August to November 1978.

  • Great Britain. Health Service Commissioner
Date:
1978
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Health Service Commissioner : first report for session 1978-79 : investigations completed August to November 1978. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    (d) The complaint about the statement that the complainant’s wife rarely took her son out 34. The Authority chairman told the Member that this statement, like the statement about the drugs and fasts, had been based by the health visitor on her discussions with the complainant’s wife. In their comments to me on the complaint the Authority added that in addition to these discussions a neighbour had approached both the family practitioner and the health visitor to state that the complainant’s wife scarcely ever took the child out and would ask her to do her shopping for her. 35. In the course of the Authority’s own investigations the health visitor was asked to clarify this statement, as the Member told the chairman in his first letter of 28 May 1976 that he understood that the complainant’s wife had taken her son out three days a week. In a written statement to the Area Nurse (Child Health) a copy of which I have seen she said she had been referring to the fact that the complainant’s wife did not take her son out on normal daily outings in his push-chair to the shops or park. She said that a pram was never bought for him and it was left until he was about eight months old before a push-chair was bought. Transport to and from the child development centre and the centre for handicapped children had all been arranged for the complainant’s wife. In another statement to the Area Nurse, made during the course of my own enquiries the health visitor said she had had to obtain a second-hand pram in March 1975 for the children of the complainant’s wife’s sister, who came from abroad to stay for a time with her. This pram had been obtained because the complainant’s wife did not have one of her own. 36. The health visitor told my officer that although she had not referred to her concern in her report she had spoken at the local authority case conference on 6 June 1975 about the fact that the complainant’s wife had rarely taken her son out. She told my officer that the family practitioner had told her on two occasions that he had been approached by neighbours, who had told him that the complainant’s wife was not taking her son out. 37. The family practitioner confirmed this statement when interviewed although he was not certain how many times he had been approached. He told my officer that he thought that the complainant’s wife had always had a pram for her son. He had a vague memory of a pram which had been kept on the ground floor of the block of flats where the complainant lived. He did not think, from his own observations, that it was used very much. Doctor D told my officer that the complainant’s wife had always had a pram. 38. My officer was present when the social worker employed by the local authority and based at hospital A was interviewed (paragraph 15). She said that the complainant’s wife had told her that she rarely took her son out because she did not know her way about the area. This social worker referred to her own record of her conversations with the complainant’s wife when she had been visiting her. I have seen copies of these records and one entry reads: ‘[the complainant’s wife] feels unable to take [her son] out—does not know area well. Does not want to see other children. Husband does shopping therefore she is cooped up with only [son] all day and nothing else to do but think about him and cry over him’. I have also seen a copy of this social worker’s report which was considered at the iz
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