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32
Home safety
As a result of pressure by the Metropolitan Boroughs' Standing
Joint Committee a clause was included in the LCC (General Powers)
Bill of 1957 (which subsequently became an Act) under which metropolitan
boroughs were given powers to deal to some extent with home
safety. S.82 of the 1957 Act allows a borough council "for the purpose
of promoting safety in the home and for encouraging the taking
of proper precautions in preventing the occurrence of accidents therein"
to make arrangements for the dissemination in the borough of information
and advice relating to such matters. In 1961 the Home
Safety Act was passed which repeals and re-enacts the above powers,
and allows contributions to be made to voluntary committees and organisations
carrying out home safety work.
Before and after the passing of the Act, the Health department had
arranged or carried out certain propaganda or educational efforts in
connection with home safety. For example, home safety films have been
shown to old people's clubs; various posters, leaflets and pamphlets
have been displayed or made available to the public; the council subscribes
to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, home
safety section; health department leaflets have been printed and displayed;
various suggestions have been made for home safety in the
provision of housing; statistics on accidents in the home are collected
or sought from hospitals. Furthermore a quarterly bulletin is issued
to local clubs, organisations, doctors and dentists, so that it can be
available to club members, those attending surgeries, and so on.
Some 500 copies of each issue are distributed.
The collection of home accident statistics is to some extent a longterm
process and it is only by obtaining the knowledge and studying it
and analysing it that one has a chance of showing different groups of
accidents which may be more preventable than other groups, or certain
localities which appear to be more accident-prone than others. It would
of course be on those that any work of the department would be particularly
brought to bear. It has been found impracticable to gather the
necessary statistics, 'but some of a limited nature, based on County
Council ambulance removals for 1961. are as follows: