MOST of us can remember the dreaded days when "Nitty Nora the bug explorer" visited school to search through rows of heads looking for head lice. But the times when school children had to line up to have their hair inspected for the bothersome bugs are over. East Lancashire Health Authority has phased out routine school checks by nurses claiming that head lice is a community problem and checks are best made within the family. So could more be done to prevent head lice in schools, and should the responsibility lie with parents, teachers or the health authority? Reporter AMANDA KILLELEA finds out.

LITTLE Jamie and Jennifer Bishop have recently returned to school after three weeks off.

No, the youngsters weren't sick, nor were they playing truant. The fact is their dad Colin was so sick of his children coming home from school with head lice he kept them at home and demanded that the problem be sorted out.

Jamie and Jennifer, pupils at West Street Primary in Colne, have both had head lice 12 times in the past year - once a month.

Every time their parents Colin and Valerie got the pair nit-free, they soon came back home from school infested once again.

So that is when their dad took his drastic action and he says he will do it again if his youngsters get nits again.

Colin said: "Now my youngsters are nit-free and the school nursery nurse has agreed to check the heads of all the children once a month. But there are still problems. The nursery nurse has 300 heads to check, and some parents won't give permission for their children's heads to be checked. If just one of them brings head lice into school then we are back to square one."

Mr Bishop knows that this problem isn't unique to West Street Primary School either.

He said: "Since I started my campaign I've had so many people get in touch with me about this problem. Head lice are rife right across East Lancashire. Something needs to be done about it. "I wrote to my MP Gordon Prentice who wrote back saying that head lice control is the responsibility of the health authority."

"If my children get nits again I will not hesitate to take them out of school, and I know I will be risking prosecution and losing my job in doing so."

At Sudell County Primary School in Darwen, parents and teachers have decided to take drastic action to beat head lice by forming their own nit hit team.

Once a fortnight a team of specially trained parent helpers check the heads of almost every pupil in the school.

Before the team started at the school there were 70 out of the 420 pupils infested with head lice.

Now there are just a handful of pupils who have picked up one or two head lice, which can be easily and quickly treated.

Head teacher Adrian Woods said: "The difficulty with the head lice problem is that it is something that not everybody wants to publicise. But the fact is that head lice are rife in primary schools across the area.

"When I contacted the health authority about the head lice problem, the view was that parents were less likely to check their children's heads if they knew that they were being checked by the school nurse.

"But I believe that parents will check their children's heads for lice more often if they know that they are going to be looked at school."

And his philosophy certainly looks like it has worked at Sudell County Primary. Mr Woods said: "I don't think we will ever eradicate the problem fully, because school isn't the only place where head lice can be passed on, but we are doing something to reduce the problem."

East Lancashire Health Authority insists that headlice are a community problem and that regular school headchecks are ineffective.

Dr Roberta Marshall, the health authority's consultant in communicable diseases, said: "The school nurse used to do regular head checks, but frankly they just don't work. If they worked we would have got rid of head lice years ago.

"When the school nurse was responsible for head checks, the energies were focused on schools, and it gave parents a false sense of security. But the issue of head lice is a community problem. If a child gets head lice the parents should not automatically blame the school.

"They should consider who else the child has been in contact with such as childminders, relatives and friends outside school."

More than 30,000 leaflets advising parents how to deal with head lice have been distributed by the health authority through schools. And the school nurses recently launched a campaign to educate parents in October.

Dr Marshall said: "People seem to think that the Health Authority has some sort of powers to deal with head lice. We don't - all we can do is advise schools and parents and give them guidelines on how to cope with the problem."

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