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CO-OPERATION WITH GENERAL PRACTITIONERS
Perhaps the most effective link with local general practitioners has been The Health of
Camden. We have been very gratified to note the interest with which they have received it and
commented on it, even though its production as a stencilled broadsheet is far from perfect and
certainly cannot compete with the copious literature which general practitioners receive from drug
firms and other commercial establishments. We have endeavoured to meet general practitioners
personally as often as possible; - telephonic communication is only a second best, especially
in the absence of sufficient telephone lines which will, one hopes, be remedied one day. Of
particular importance in the strengthening of the links with general practitioners is the interest
which public health doctors take in local professional activities, and all of us in the Department
were proud when our colleague, Dr. R.D. Dewar, Associate Medical Officer of Health, was elected
as the first Chairman of the newly formed Camden Division of the British Medical Association.
CO-OPERATION WITH THE INNER LONDON EDUCATION
AUTHORITY
In spite of the fact that the scheme which links the Borough's health services with those
of the Inner London Education Authority had not been adopted by the end of the year, in practice
the services functioned as one. Many of us, of course, had previously been concerned with
personal and school health services so that the transition did hot cause undue difficulty.
NIGHT SERVICE
Essential for the efficient functioning of a health department is its accessibility on a
twenty-four hour basis. To provide night and week-end telephone cover for Camden alone would
have necessitated expensive staffing arrangements. An Admissions and Doctors' Information Service
already existed at the Whittington Hospital, and the North London Group Hospital Management
Committee readily agreed to extend the functions of this service to night, week-end and public
holiday telephone cover for the London Boroughs of Camden, Haringey and Islington from 1 April,
1965 on an agreed financial basis. This arrangement provided for monitoring of telephone calls
to the Department out of office hours by the General Post Office and for directing callers to the
Hospital's night telephone service. The operators are provided with the duty rosters of midwives,
mental health social workers and medical officers who are contacted immediately as occasion
demands.
Later in the year the Council took over the home nursing services from the District
Nursing Associations and emergency cover was then extended to these services.
Hospitals, general practitioners and others were informed about these arrangements. Not
only did they work efficiently, but they contributed to functional co-ordination with the other
branches of the National Health Service, and also to co-operation between colleagues working in
the neighbouring boroughs.
We owe thanks for the inception of this service and Its efficient working to the senior
administrative officers of the hospital group and particularly also to Miss M. Gregory and her
colleagues of the Admissions and Doctors' Information Service.
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