Editorial Comment

Lots of things which occur in the hospital are recorded in the Standard, and, although many events still come to us only via the grapevine, we are generally pleased with the increase in the flow of information reaching us.

In this context, however, it is worth repeating that The Standard does not create news.

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REPORT ON THE POETRY COMPETITION
(Sponsored by Social Therapy).

There were 13 entries to be considered by the of judges whose names follow this account.

Our conclusions were arrived at with difficulty, but are now final.

The major source of difficulty was blurred vision, no sooner had we finished weeping over 'Little Jim' -

"A weary, worn-out creature
His once bright eyes grown dim,
He was a collier's only child,
They called him Little Jim."

- than we were temporarity incapacitated by the Sago Saga:

"The steak today was delicious,
The ovens have excelled.
The soup was good, but not the pud."

AND

"The skin is good - I like a nibble."

We felt we might have read 'Little Jim' before, somewhere, and reluctantly hardened our hearts against him. And in view of the rumoured approaches by the Milk Marketing Board to the Pudding Board we felt justified in awarding only an Honourable Mention for Consistency.

Mr. Jolley sportingly burnt his own entry on the Fire Brigade.

Mr. Bainbridge, who wrote the immortal lines -

"It isn't, of course, the cooks who rotate,
But the puddings themselves as in oven they bake."

- was disqualified for advertising.

Delph Night Staff who plaintively informed us -

"And as the night got colder
The Temp. rose to seventy-five."

- well, people as finicky as this would probably fall out over the distribution of the prize money.

This left us with six entries:

The Delph.  H.B. Percival.
How Wide the World.  J.B. Whittaker.
My Mind.  D. Potter.
In Reality.  J. Lock.
A Pearl.  J. Lock.
Is This You?  J. Lock.

After much discussion we decided -

The Winner of the Social Therapy Poetry Prize -

MR. E. B. PERCIVAL.

With a very close Runner-up -

MISS J. LOCK

And we would like to think all those who submitted entries.

N. COPPACK
J. A. JOLLEY
R. BRUTON

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COMMITTEE ON NURSING REPORTS

The long-awaited report of the Committee on Nursing headed by Professor Asa Briggs has recently been published.

The recommendations of the Committee are at present being summarised by the nursing journals, and the report itself can be obtained from the Government Bookshop, Brazennose Street, (off Deansgate), Manchester, Price £1.90.

PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE.

UNION NEWS

A disco is being run in the Hospital Club by the Winwick Branch of the Confederation of Health Service Employees on Thursday, November 30th, 1972.

The evening will include a chicken supper, and as admission is free, the number of tickets is limited. Supply is restricted to C.O.H.S.E. branch members only.

Tickets can only be obtained from B. McAuley, Male Upper Delph, and application should be made as early as possible.

B. McAULEY,
Branch Secretary.

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FIXTURES - November 14th, TUESDAY

BILLIARDS

Winwick Hospital v Alliance Box

RESULTS - Billiards, November 1st.

Winwick Hospital 7 - St Mary's B 0

        - Billiards, November 1st.

Winwick B. 4 v Greenalls 4
Latchford Cons. 6 v Winwick A. 2

SNOOKER

Winwick A. v Winwick B.

7.30 Start at the club.

P. HASTRY

The Dancing Section held its third Annual Party night on Monday, 30th October, 1972. 66 People attended a very attractive buffet supper, which lasted from 8 until 11.00 p.m.

A report was read out whereby £75 had been handed to people who needed it most, as follows:

£25 Winwick hospital League of Friends, Housecraft venture.

£25 British Red Cross Society, Warrington Branch

£25 Sir Thomas Lipton Memorial - Hostel for aged nurses.

To date £150 has been handed over to various charities.

These amounts plus the free party cleared the funds for another year. Considering the charge is only 10p I think the funds went a long way to helping others.

Thanks to all who helped me.

MRS. M. MILNER.

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ADVICE TO READERS

Promulgating your esoteric cogitations or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable, philosophical or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity.

Let your conversational communications demonstrate a clarified conciseness, a compact comprehensibleness, no coalescent conglomerations of tautologous garrulity, jejune bafflement and asinine affectations.

Let your extemporaneous verbal evaporations and expatiations have lucidity, intelligibility and veracious vivacity without rodomontade or thespian bombast.

Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous propensity, psittaceous vacuity, ventriloquial verbosity and vaniloquent vapidity.

Shun double entendre, obnoxious jocosity and pestiferous profanity, observable or apparent.

Or - to put it in short, - say what you mean and don't use big words.

(Copied)

H. TABERNER

A CHANCE OF A LIFETIME

Preceded by 3 weeks of press and television publicity of "This is the chance of a lifetime... don't throw it away", you should have now received the Government's booklet on fire safety in the home.

Having sorted it out from amongst the invitations to send off for a mail order catalogue, install double glazing or central heating, or renew your subscription to the A.A. or R.A.C., it would be interesting to know just what did you do with the booklet.

How many looked at it? How many read it? How many can remember what they read? And, more important still, how many have already acted upon the advice the booklet contains?

If only we could create as much interest in "How to save your life" as there is in "How to lose weight", we would help to reduce the ever rising number of deaths by fire each year.

C. P. EVANS.

WORK STUDY - Part II

Method Study

Work Study is the term used to describe those techniques used in the examination of work, and the investigation of the factors affecting efficiency and economy in the situation being studied, in order to bring about improvement and to ensure the best possible use of human and material resources .

This approach can be divided into Method Study and Work Measurement. Method Study to improve the methods of production in order to secure more effective use of material plant, equipment and manpower and Work Measurement to assess human effectiveness, to make improved planning and control possible, and to provide a basis for payment by results.

Method Study is the application of a logical procedure of investigation, in a form suited to the situation being studied. It is flexible and, for example, can be applied to tine work performed by one operator or the operations of an entire factory.

In some cases economic or technical considerations will indicate where a Method Study investigation is more urgently required. Manpower shortages, production bottlenecks, or excessive movements of materials over long distances to successive operations are examples. But, once these more obvious needs have been dealt with, the investigation may need to be extended to include other - and perhaps all - aspects of the workplace. In this, economic and technical considerations again will be important, for the anticipated gains have to be balanced against the cost of the. investigation and it is pointless to devise technically impracticable improvements. For this reason a preliminary survey or, production study, of the entire workplace is usual when work study is being introduced. Moreover the human factors must not be ignored. Properly used, the techniques of Method Study can't, for example, identify the reasons for - and provide solutions to - such problems as: excessive fatigue experienced by work people in performing their tasks; health and safety hazards that may not formerly have been recognised as such or were generally accepted as being "part of the job"?

Trade Unionists should, however, insist on adequate consultation - and appropriate negotiation - about the purpose of the study and about the problems that will arise for the workers and the benefits they may expect as a result of the investigation.

An adequate record of the work being studied is necessary before possible improvements can be investigated, this record should clearly indicate the sequence of activity and its nature.

Normally, instead of a written account, various forms of symbols and charts are used to provide this information. Sometimes photographic means are used when an exact detailed record of the present method of work is required, however photographic records are more expensive than those obtained by more conventional methods and are not so frequently used.

The record of the job is the raw material of the study and it is "processed" by critically examining the facts. The Job is examined step by step to discover the purpose of each step, whether there is a better way or a more appropriate person to do it. Critical examination is made easier if the key stages of the job are tackled first and those facts that are incidental are dealt with later, if necessary.

Considerable records may flow from challenging the purpose of the activity, for example, the investigation of the manufacture of galvanised iron buckets might merely lead to improved production of this type of bucket. If, however, a study is directed to finding the best type of container for a particular purpose, its material configuration and its method of production the scope could be widened to include plastic containers which might not be of traditional bucket shape.

J. SHAW

SOCIAL THERAPY REVIEW - W/E 5th November

The Halloween Dance held on Tuesday last was a roaring success. The staff must be congratulated on their imaginative costumes and quite honestly I wouldn't have liked to judge the competition when the standard was so high. The judges were Mr. Wright, Mrs. Thomasson (league of friends) and one of our senior voluntary workers. The winners were also given a bottle. of sherry for the staff on their ward which were Female 2 A and Female 2 Up.

The Winners were:

Female	1st	A. WARD, F.2A	Male	1st	B. MYERS, F.2U
	2nd	M. LLOYD, F.7 D		2nd	F. WHITBY,F.7U
	3rd	C. HILL, F.2Up		3rd	B. BARKER, M.10

Our thanks to the Sewing Room for allowing us to use their room in which to serve refreshments and to all those who helped in many ways.

On Thursday, the men had a football match played away at Mary Dendy Hospital which resulted in a win for Winwick by 9 goals to 2.

As promised last week, the meeting for anyone interested in Netball will take place on Monday, the 13th November at 12.30 p.m. in the Female Gym. Anyone whose duty will not allow them to attend please let us know of your interest.

Our next concert will perform twice on Saturday 25th November in the Recreation Hall. Further details will be published the week before. This is advance publicity!!

K. APPLETON,
(for social therapy)

ASHTON-IN-MAKERFIELD AFTER-CARE CLUB

Recently the "Lancashire Evening Post and Chronicle" published an article describing the work of a club in Ashton-in-Makerfield which is run by the Lancashire County Council Social Services Department. Described as a "psychiatric after-care club", the Heath Road centre is similar to our own Stepping Stones Club and recently celebrated its second birthday. The County Council is reported as having started other similar clubs in the past, but this is reputed to be the only one still running.

A significant difference between our own after-care club and its Ashton counterpart is that the latter is organised and run by the Social Services Department whereas the Stepping Stones Club is a product of the enthusiasm of a small group of Winwick Staff.

The organiser of the Ashton club is a Mr. Edward Armstrong, area social service officer, and he is one of three trained staff who help at the club every week. The club has just been registered as a charity. There is no fee to join, and the club relies mainly on a voluntary collection at the end of each session.

Members of the club come from the Wigan, Hindley, Ashton, Platt Bridge, Billinge and Leigh areas, and a number of patients come by coach from Billinge Hospital.

Meetings take place every Wednesday, in the former Civil Defence Training Centre in Heath Road, Ashton.

PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE

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CRITICISM OF 'HEALTH AT WORK' REPORT

The report of the Robens Committee on safety and health at work, now under consideration by the Government, was criticised last week as placing too much emphasis on physical instead of psychological factors. Mr. David Ennals, Director of the MIND Campaign of the National Association for Mental Health, and former Minister of State for Health and Social Security, told a Mind week conference on "Stress at Work"' at Swindon: "It is really almost incomprehensible that with all the facts at their disposal concerning the ill-health - 50% higher than days lost from accidents and industrial diseases - they should have concentrated entirely on physical aspects of health and safety and ignored psychological factors". On behalf of the MIND/NAMH working party on "Stress at Work", Mr. Ennals urged the Secretary for Employment, on considering the recommendations of the Robens report, to consider also the MIND/NAMH proposals that:

All large factories and firms should be required to establish their own health service. Minimum establishment for medical and nursing personnel in relation to the number of employees should be laid down by regulations under the appropriate sections of the Factory Act.

An occupational health service should be established as a statutory requirement within the National Health Service to cover all the working population not covered by industrial health schemes.

PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE

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COLOUR TELEVISION FOR WARRINGTON GENERAL

The members of Warrington Round Table presented a colour television set to a children's ward at Warrington General Hospital.

The set was received on behalf of the hospital by Councillor B. Eaves, Chairman of the H.M.C.

PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE

PHOTOGRAPHIC CLUB NEWS

Don't forget the club's "Simple camera evening" on Monday, 13th November at 8.00 p.m. in the VISITING ROOM. If you take pictures in black & white or colour or whether you prefer colour slides, you will find the advice and help invaluable.

There is a free cup of tea. for everyone!

D. LATHAM.

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WINNER OF THE RAFFLE for a pair of Bri-nylon sheets was PUPIL NURSE C. CROOK. Funds in aid of Firework Display came to £26.84.

The sources were:	£
Wards and Patients	6.34
Raffle	10.50
from hospital	10.00

This money enabled us to purchase £30 (with dis.) worth.

Thank you all for your support.

D. J. DEVINE

FAREWELL TO:

D.C.N.  G. T. Lord

Mrs. Alice Fogg, S.E.N. has left Winwick Hospital after 10 years service to live with her son in Devon. Her nursing abilities and cheerful personality will be greatly missed by staff and patients.

The Occupational Therapy Department have lost the services of Mrs. Rita Wilson.

Her vivacious personality and her abilities in the Therapeutic field will be very much missed by the hospital and patients.

ATTENDING 3 weeks Course - Mabel Fletcher College

Sister Gleeson

ATTENDING In-Service Training Course at Royal College of Nursing - Birmingham -

Sister Lythgoe and Mr. E. Potts C/N

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