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8
as a sanitary authority; the first that in any legislation which may be introduced
relating to offices, it is recommended that the duty of inspection
and enforcement of standards of hygiene in London shall lie with the
Metropolitan Boroughs as sanitary authorities. In regard to the Shops
Act, 1934, it is recommended that the administration of the whole of
Section 10 relating to ventilation, temperature, lighting, sanitary conveniences,
washing and meal facilities shall be carried out by the Metropolitan
Borough Councils as sanitary authorities. It seemed to the
Committee that lighting and washing facilities being requirements related
to the welfare of employees should also be the care of the sanitary,
authorities, just as temperature, ventilation and sanitary accommodation
are already their province. This would mean that the present anomaly
by which the London County Council is responsible for lighting and washing
facilities in shops, while the Borough Council dealt with w.c.
accommodation, ventilation and temperature, would be removed so that
the Borough Councils would become responsible for all those conditions
of welfare.
Your Medical Officer of Health in October, 1948, was also invited to
be a member of a Working Party set up by the Minister of Health and
the Minister of Food, the reference being:-
"To make recommendations to the Ministers of Food and
Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland as to precautions
which are considered practicable and desirable with a view to
securing the observance of sanitary and cleanly conditions in the
catering trade."
The City Council was again good enough to consent to his serving oh
this Working Party, particularly in view of the fact that Westminster
is the home of the catering industry; there are some 3,000 catering
establishments in this City working under licence from the Ministry of
Food. This Working Party began its meetings in November, 1948. One
of the factors which has induced the Ministers to set up this inquiry
is the apparent increase in the incidence of outbreaks of food poisoning.
It must be remembered that cases of food poisoning or "suspected"
cases first became notifiable in 1939. Owing to the profound changes
created by war-time conditions and movements of population no settled
interpretation could be made of the implications of notifications until
conditions had become more stabilized. It appears from the returns in
the report of the Chief Medical Officer for 1947 that outbreaks of food
poisoning reported to the Ministry since the war have increased as
follows:—
1945—422; 1946—598; 1947—765.
While it is true that much leeway needs to be made up in the practice
and conduct of some catering establishments because of improvisation
in the war years—for wayfarers beleagured in war time when bombs
'were falling it was more often a question of where food could be obtained