[Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Darlington County Borough.

  • Darlington (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1959
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Darlington County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    47/118 (page 45)
    Your mental welfare officers continued to develop the service to the best of their considerable abilities. It is very difficult to deal on a statistical basis with the work they carry out, since the case work required from them is of so close and intimate a nature. The best advertisement of the efficiency of the service is shown by the acceptability of your officers to all sorts and conditions of people, and the high regard in which they are held by the Medical Superintendent of Winterton Hospital and the consultant psychiatrist seconded to the Darlington area. The amount that could be done towards a completely integrated service between hospital and local health authority is, however, immensely greater than what to date has been achieved. One would like to see the mental welfare officers having the freest possible access to the mental hospital for case conferences and also to psychiatric out-patients at the Darlington Memorial Hospital. This project would be welcomed by the hospital psychiatrists themselves, but available time has not been sufficient to develop it. By the proposals under the Mental Health Act under discussion at the end of the year a larger establishment of mental health officers was envisaged, but this, of course, was something for the future. Thought had also been given to residential accommodation for the various categories foreseen under the Act for whom the local health authority would be responsible. These include older people with varying degrees of senile dementia, patients who would most appropriately be “ home invalids ” but for whom no home was available, those who were relieved or even cured of their disability and hence able to work in the open market, but for whom for one reason or another life at home or in lodgings was impossible, and, in rather a different category, persons of sub-normal mentality who were again without a home of their own. Various lines of development had been foreseen to meet these needs, but plans awaited further thought at the end of the year. One problem was to know the extent for which provision must be made and, though a helpful conference was held in December between the Medical Superintendent of Winterton Hospital and local consultant psychiatrist on the one hand, and your Medical Officer of Health, Deputy Medical Officer of Health and Mr. C. W. Price on the other, no firm figures were available. The excellent concord between all concerned was, however, once more exemplified. Turning to the service for those of sub-normal mental development, under older legislation described as mental defectives, a problem was brought to your notice by the senior mental worker at the occupation centre, Mrs. J. Paxton, which has been to some extent foreboded in previous years. For the most part boys and girls, young men and young women of sub-normal mentality are little disturbed by sexual passion unless they are excited thereto. But when the sexes are mixed and opportunities exist, incidents of this nature are always a liability. As you are well aware, the age range at the occupation centre extends from 5 to 45 years and both sexes are considerably and inevit- ably mixed together there under the supervision of three women. On two afternoons a week your handicraft instructor holds a class for the men and he is available under the same roof at other times, but this is the only male supervision they receive. This year Mrs. Paxton indicated that two of her charges, boys in their middle ’teens, were showing a certain excitability in respect of the opposite sex and the possibility of untoward incidents was therefore brought much nearer. This led to two developments, both of which at the end of the year were still, it must be admitted with regret, merely paper schemes. One was to extend the space at the occupation centre by