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The Health Services and Public Health Act, 1968, has amended the list of
notifiable diseases and certain relevant sections of the earlier Acts.
These Regulations:-
(i) apply specific sections of the three Acts to various
diseases;
(ii) prescribe the duties of a medical officer of health
with respect to notifications and to returns and
reports of disease, superseding certain provisions
in the Public Health Officers Regulations, 1959, and
the Public Health Officers (Port Health Districts)
Regulations, 1959;
(iii) authorise certain measures for preventing the spread
of disease.
The principal changes from the earlier Regulations are:-
(a) any obligation to notify a case of disease now rests solely
on a medical practitioner;
(b) changes and additions are made to the list of diseases
which are to be notified and of the sections which apply
to each disease, in particular, acute primary pneumonia,
acute influenzal pneumonia, acute rheumatism and puerperal
pyrexia are no longer to be notified, and tetanus and
yellow fever require for the first time to be notified;
(c) leptospirosis, hitherto to be notified only in certain
areas, is to be notified throughout England and Wales;
(d) the powers of a medical officer of health of a district to
vaccinate contacts of persons suffering from smallpox have
been extended to other diseases;
(e) all documents relating to notifications are to be treated as
confidential;
(f) the powers of a local authority to require a person to stop
work in order to prevent spread of infection, are extended
to permit action in cases of food poisoning.
These Regulations came into force on the same day as the relevant
sections of the Health Services and Public Health Act, 1968, namely, 1st
October, 1968.
The diseases now to be notified are:-
Acute encephalitis
Ophthalmia neonatorum
Acute meningitis
Paratyphoid fever
Acute poliomyelitis
Plague
Anthrax
Relapsing fever
Cholera
Scarlet fever
Diphtheria
Smallpox
Dysentery
Tetanus
Infective jaundice
Tuberculosis
Leprosy
Typhoid fever
Leptospirosis
Tophus
Malaria
Whooping cough
Measles
Yellow fever