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departments. Mobile E.E.G. units might be suitable in sparselypopulated areas.

E.E.G. reports should be issued only by the consultant incharge. But E.E.G. consultants are few. Training is now

provided only at the National Hospital; and at least one morepostgraduate teaching centre is needed. Moreover, there are sofew senior registrar appointments that experience is hard togain. The specialty would be more attractive if consultantposts carried opportunities for research.The training of E.E.G. technicians is now organised by the

joint educational board of the E.E.G. Society and the Electro-physiological Technologists Association. But instruction is

given in London alone. Technicians are scarce; a proportionof three to every two E.E.G. machines would allow better use of

expensive equipment.The college last reported on this subject in 1958. In

the intervening four years only one E.E.G. consultant hasbeen appointed, and, says the new report, departmentshave continued to be opened haphazardly without regardto regional needs.

THE MINISTER ON STATISTICS

AT the annual conference of the Institute of HospitalAdministrators on May 4, Mr. Enoch Powell, the Ministerof Health, complained that hospital statistics were ofteninaccurate and misleading. Figures for the numbers ofstaff employed, for the hospital " bed complement ", andfor the lengths of waiting-lists formed the basis of futureplans. Unless these statistics were exact and meaningful,estimates of future needs would be wrong.

Interpretation of FiguresThe more efficient organisation of an existing department

would be reflected in the statistics only by an increase in thenumber of patients treated; the better service given would beindicated by neither bigger staff nor greater expenditure.Further, because the waiting-list might well have been reduced,the returned figures could be interpreted as evidence, not ofgreater efficiency, but of reduced demand. Conversely, greaterexpenditure on a service might reflect waste rather than

expansion.Establishments

Figures for the number of staff employed must be meaning-ful, said the Minister. Estimates of the numbers of staff whichit was intended to employ during the year should be realistic,and should not greatly exceed reasonable hopes for recruitment.Similarly, the " approved staff complement "-the numberneeded to do an approved volume of work to an approvedstandard-should be neither a vague aspiration nor a ceilingnot to be exceeded.

" In many cases," he continued, "we simply do not have ...the data which are needed in order to fix complements on aconsistent and reasonable basis." It was therefore almost

impossible to plan ahead, to anticipate changes in supply anddemand, and to devise new methods of deploying existing staffto meet them.

Bed StatisticsAt present, bed statistics were " far from reliable ". The

Minister said that he had been presented with figures whichwere meaningless even to the hospital authority issuing them;their origin was " lost in the mists of antiquity ".

Figures for beds temporarily out of use because of mainten-ance must not include those in process of conversion for a newpurpose. Beds out of use owing to lack of staff should includeonly those erected and equipped for potential occupants; wardsclosed years ago, where no effort was being made to recruitstaff for their reopening, did not come into this category.Unstaffed beds might be out of use because they representedthe infectious diseases’ reserve, or because major structuralalterations were under way.

Together, these comprised the "total bed complement"which had to be related to the population served by the hospital.Even if these figures were accurately returned, they did notreveal overcrowding; " beds properly available " would be afar more useful guide for planning.

Waiting-listsThe balance between supply and demand was assessed by

the length of waiting-lists. But these must include onlypatients who would at once accept a bed if it were offered tothem. The list must be up-to-date, and not include patientsdead, recovered, or already in hospital. The Minister intendsto issue a memorandum advising on the revision of waiting-listsfor chronic-sick and geriatric patients.The Minister emphasised that his concern over hospital

statistics did not stem from fear that they would revealpolitically embarrassing shortages. He wanted figuiesthat were neither cooked nor half-baked, but true. At

present the pretended statistics were no more than a

conglomerated fiction.

Conference

TELEVISION AND THE CHILD

AT the biennial conference of the Nursery SchoolAssociation, held in London on May 3 under the chairman-ship of Dr. DAVID MORRIS, Television and the Child wasdiscussed by Dr. HILDE HIMMELWEIT, reader in socialpsychology in the University of London.

Dr. Himmelweit said that for the child the world hadbecome much larger, with increased facility for travel andopportunities for meeting people. Television was one ofthe main sources of this wider experience which, althoughvirtually second hand, had nevertheless a vivid impact-somuch so that this could rightly be called the television era.The Nuffield Foundation study revealed that only 6% of

infant teachers actively discussed the television programmestheir pupils saw. The teachers who recognised and discussedtelevision reacted differently to their pupils, finding a lowerprevalence of presumed harmful effects such as fatigue, pallor,and inattention at school. The positive effects of televisionincluded new knowledge from seeing skyscrapers and snowand the people of different countries. The negative effectsconsisted mostly in emotional disturbance: in the programmeschildren looked at with their older siblings and the family,they saw adults in conflict; and the stress the children experi-enced was considerable.

Experimental work had been carried out to establish howchildren of different ages reacted to the visual impact oftelevision. In Germany Beatrix Potter’s " Tony, the TownMouse ", with which German children were unfamiliar, hadbeen used. The results showed that the young child’s responsewas idiosyncratic. In many instances there was apparentlya boomerang effect which could outdo the good intended byevoking apprehension and fears, as in the programme " BonVoyage " which, while it gave viewers a better understandingof travel abroad, also made many frightened at their lack of aforeign language.

Tastes were built and shaped by the techniques used intelevision production, as well as by parents and older children.70% of homes in this country had the television switched onfrom 5 P.M. ; but despite this, children seemed to acquire thefacility for not taking in what did not interest them.By selection and discrimination, television could become

similar to our libraries and play an important part in helpingchildren to be better informed, more tolerant, and moreimaginative.