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13
AFTER HOURS EMERGENCY TELEPHONE SERVICE
This service provides an out of office hours continuity for the emergency work of the Social Services
and the Health Departments of the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Through it a number of standby specialist officers can be contacted to deal with urgent problems or the
duty officer can advise or deal directly with less pressing cases, passing information to the appropriate
day-time sections for follow-up action when necessary. The control centre is based at Westminster City Hall
and is manned by one of four duty officers working on a rota. The service is financed jointly by both
boroughs.
During 1972 a total of 14,649 (13,109) calls were received by the duty officers, 11,905 (10,994)
relating to the City of Westminster and 2,744 (2,115) to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
An analysis is given in Table 6, page 64.
VISITORS TO THE DEPARTMENT
In addition to the practical training provided for various members of the Health Department staff (to
which reference is made elsewhere in the Report) nearly 400 persons were welcomed during 1972 for visits
of observation.
Being located close to the central Government departments and near to many Embassies or Legations
of other countries, the City Council receives numerous requests to receive visitors comprising officials from
central or local government of this country or from abroad; members of foreign municipalities or Commonwealth
countries; doctors, students from teaching hospitals, nurses, social workers, etc. Indeed the point
has now been reached when it has become necessary to "ration" the number of visitors who can be
received without seriously interfering with the day-to-day work of the Department.
These visits embrace all the activities of the Health Department and although they may be timeconsuming
they prove interesting and stimulating to the staff concerned.
It is of interest to note that although the majority of visitors to the department came from the United
Kingdom, the overseas countries concerned included Australia, Canada, Holland, Italy and the United
States of America.