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I am sure that our activities have contributed to the well-being
of the aged by visiting and bringing to their notice the various
services available by statutory and voluntary organisations.
Food Hygiene
In this field perhaps standards did not rise to the extent I
would have liked to see. The Pood Hygiene (General) Regulations
1960 gave us a powerful weapon to improve conditions generally but
there are so many snail businesses which come and go with such
rapidity that it is extremely difficult over a short period to
institute improvements.
I would pay that the better food establishments have improved
beyond measure over the last eight years I have been in the Borough
but I must confoss this improvement very often was undertaken by the
proprietor himself without action by my Department. Owners must
have found it to be good business to show a high standard of cleanliness.
At the other end of the scale the very poor shops still
remain very poor or have improved only slightly -there is much
work yet to be done.
The unsatisfactory standards of hygiene in Street Markets
caused me to recommend to the Public Health Committee on a number
of occasions that licences for the sale of open foods should not be
granted. In 1959 the Committee agreed with my recommendations and
referred them to the Street Trading Committee who resolved that no
new applications for licences to sell meat, fish and poultry should
be considered. It follows that in due course the sale of all such
open foods in the street markets of the Borough will cease.
The foregoing are some of the positive contributions that were
made to environmental health improvement.
Perhaps the most important negative point is that in the past
8 years there has not been a serious outbreak of infectious disease
this may be due not so much to my vigilance as to the fact that
such outbreaks occur only on rare occasions in this country.
Statistics;
During 1964 the Registrar-General estimated the population to
be 46,420 as compared with 50,940 in 1957, a reduction of 4,520;
it is considered that no further reduction will take place, but
possibly a slight increase in the future.
As to causes of death I have to report again, as I have done
in previous years, on the number of deaths from cancer of the lung.
There were 31 male and only 3 female deaths from this disease. The
difference is remarkable and no doubt due to the fact that in times
past women did not smoke. I am afraid in years to come this marked
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