London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

View report page

Deptford 1914

Annual report on the health of the Metropolitan Borough of Deptford

This page requires JavaScript

141
The standard of sanitary accommodation adopted in the borough
is that laid down in the Secretary of State's Order for February 4th,
1903, viz.: One sanitary convenience for every 25 persons (with modifications
where more than one hundred persons are employed), and
with separate accommodation for the sexes where both sexes are
employed.
WORKPLACES.
Workplaces include any place where work is done permanently,
and where people assemble together to do work permanently of
some kind or other. The kitchens of restaurants, etc., though they are
not workshops, come within the meaning of the term "workplace."
The number of workplaces on the register at the end of the year
was 197 (including food premises, kitchens, etc.) with 336 rooms.
Inspections for the year numbered 462 and 36 notices were served.
These premises include stables, builders' yards, restaurants,
kitchens, cinema theatres, etc.
OUTWORKERS.
The number of premises on the register at the end of the year was
750, using 867 rooms. The number added during the year was 103
and cancelled 57.
The number of inspections for the year was 188 and 5 notices
were served.
The lists received from employers in the borough numbered 76, giving
the names and addresses of 496 persons employed.
In no case was it necessary to take legal proceedings against
employers for failing to make the necessary return of outworkers employed
by them.
In 24 instances work was found in connection with infected
premises, and in each case the necessary disinfection of the materials
on hand was carried out before being returned to the employers of the
outworkers in question.
As pointed out in previous reports this work is of a varied and
fluctuating character, causing continual alteration of the registers.
This branch of Public Health Administration is an extremely
important one, and frequent inspections are necessary, both with a view
to remedying sanitary defects and also to ensure against the possibility
of disease being spread by the transmission of infected work
from one place to another.
Special attention was paid to the condition of the out-worker's
rooms, and when necessary, cleansing was carried out.