TASKS OF THE CHILD HEALTH SERVICE
The major tasks of the new Child Health Service [in the United Kingdom] are identified as the promotion of good health in the child population, which is basically healthy, well nourished, and subject to comparatively few serious diseases, and the care of the minority of children who are abnormal from birth or early life. The treatment of disease in infancy and childhood will still be important, and the aim will be to concentrate pediatric hospital facilities into larger and more efficient units, if possible of 100 or more beds and seldom less than 60, with supportive day care and outpatient services. The widespread establishment of special care units for newborn infants is already helping to raise the standard of neonatal pediatrics and this trend will be intensified. . . . Acute hospital pediatrics will form a relatively small part of the total commitment of the Child Health Service, which will be based on prevention at least as much as on the treatment of disease. The essential unity of pediatrics is emphasized, school health and the care of the handicapped being integral components just as much as pediatric cardiology or neonatology and in no way to be regarded as lesser forms of practice.