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15
or Borough services, or with the help of voluntary organisations. It
is all very much "on a shoe string" because in law, all the Borough Council
is permitted to do is to make a donation to a voluntary organisation which,
as part of its activities, provides meals or recreation for old people, and
to remove to a suitable institution compulsorily, old people who can no
longer care for themselves. Incidentally, this latter procedure is fraught
with difficulties and obstructions . We do manage somehow to provide a
service (sometimes by stretching our powers), often with the aid of
voluntary organisations which provide, for example, such facilities as meals
on wheels, holidays, chiropody, outings, visiting and clubs. In many of
these activities the Kensington Council of Social Service plays a prominent
part.
It is essential to recognize that the aged form about 15% of our
population, and this percentage is rapidly approaching the point where they
will equal the numbers of young people under 15 years. Care must be
provided for those approaching the end of life, just as provision is made
for maternal and child welfare at the beginning of life. What is needed
is legislation providing a comprehensive scheme for their welfare - what my
colleague in Pinsbury described as a "Charter for the Aged" some time ago.
FOOD HYGIENE. It is a long cry from sand in the sugar and water
in the milk to modern food and drugs control, and Kensington has always taken
a lead in food sampling and hygiene. One may mention the efforts made in
1923 to secure the accurate labelling and the control of colouring matters
and preservatives in food which resulted in appropriate legislation; the
improvements secured in butchers' shops after the introduction of the 1924
Meat Regulations, the recommendations in 1930/32 regarding hygiene of
public houses and their cellars, subsequently nationally adopted; the 1948
food premises survey; the 1950 Clean Food Campaign, including Food Hygiene
Exhibitions and our more recent action under the Food Hygiene Regulations,
under which some 5,302 inspections have been made and a substantial
improvement obtained in food handling practices. Efforts have even been
made to keep dogs and smokers out of food shops. In all this work, we
have had the willing co-operation and assistance of the great majority of
the food traders.
HOME SAFETY. It is not generally appreciated that home accidents
cause more deaths than those on the road - 6,908 as opposed to 4,939 in
England and Wales during 1956. This is in addition to non-fatal accidents
requiring hospital care, involving probably one and three-quarter million
people annually, and costing between four and five million pounds.
Kensington have been very concerned with this problem for a long
time and have been instrumental in securing legal powers to spend money on
home safety propaganda. In the same connection they have initiated
action to promote safety in tenement houses by legislation to secure the
compulsory artificial lighting of staircases. The Public Health Committee
are proposing to take action in the near future when certain outstanding
details have been settled with the Ministry of Health.
MENTAL HEALTH. Out of a total of roughly 424,000 occupied
hospital beds, approximately 151,000 are occupied in mental hospitals,
approximately 54»000 in mental deficiency institutions and among the greatest
causes of incapacity for work are mental psychoneurotic, nervous or
psychosomatic illnesses. It has been estimated that as many as 75% of
patients visiting general practitioners, are suffering from a neurosis of
one kind or another.
In addition, there is the enormous increase in crime (a social
disease arising from psychopathic tendencies), whose extent was revealed
in the House of Lords recently, where it was stated that prisoners had
increased from 20,739 (July,1956), to 24,300 (beginning April, 1958), an
increase of about one-sixth in twenty-one months. These figures include
an increase in Borstal inmates from 2,600 to 4,000 over the same period.
The Minister without Portfolio stated "that a serious problem of adolescent
crime exists is now all too painfully clear." Apart from drastic changes
which will be required in the public's outlook upon crime and discipline