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MEDICAL ARRANGMENTS FOR LONG-STAY IMMIGRANTS
At ports of arrival long-stay immigrants, both Commonwealth and alien, are
referred to medical inspectors and given a pamphlet printed in languages which
they are likely to understand. This is to encourage them to register with a medical
practitioner in their place of residence so that he can arrange for them to go to a
mass radiography unit, a chest clinic or a hospital for X-ray.
The Health Department is notified of the names and addresses of immigrants
entering the Borough with the object of ensuring that at an early date the immigrants
are made aware of how to use the Health Service. An important aim of the department
is to secure by persuasion that those from countries with a high incidence of
tuberculosis have an X-ray of the chest as soon as possible.
The following table, based on returns made to the Ministry of Health, shows
the number notified to the department during 1969, and the number of successful
visits made. Unsuccessful visits occur where the immigrant has moved out of the
Borough and has left no forwarding address.

REHOUSING ON SPECIAL MEDICAL GROUNDS
In 1889 the London County Council was established under the Local Government
Act, 1888. The Act gave the new county council jurisdiction over the area of the
Metropolitan Board of Works, and this area, together with the City, was styled
the Administrative County of London. The vestries and district boards were at
the time essentially untouched.
The London Government Act, 1899, set up the former 28 Metropolitan boroughs.
Under the London Government Act, 1963, which came into force in 1965, the
present Greater London Council and the London boroughs were brought into being.
The London County Council, unlike other county councils, inherited housing
powers from the Metropolitan Board of Works, and subsequently became the
largest housing authority in the world.
As the Metropolitan boroughs were public health authorities and housing services
grew up out of the necessity for providing for the removal of insanitary dwellings
and for the building of new and better housing for workers (the first real Act being
the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, with the subsequent long series of
Housing Acts), they too had a major interest in housing problems.
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