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3
CITY OF WESTMINSTER
Telephone: Health Department,
01 -828 8070 City Hall,
Victoria Street,
London, S.W.1
To The Right Worshipful The Lord Mayor. Aldermen and Councillors of the City of Westminster.
My Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors,
I have the honour to present for your information a report on matters affecting the health of the
City of Westminster during the year 1966.
The local health services have continued to work smoothly and efficiently since the reorganisation
of London Government in 1965. Teething troubles were fewer than expected and no major
difficulties have arisen. The staff from the four authorities involved in the amalgamation have
welded themselves into a team and work together happily as though they had been under a single
authority for many years. The review of the services commenced before the present City came into
being has been a continuing process, and the aim has been to provide new services and expand old
ones as the need arises, not as a result of pressure from unsatisfied demand. New services provided
during 1966 included special care units for handicapped children, a day centre for the mentally ill,
a sponsored child minder service, and a cervical cytology screening service for the early detection
of cancer; extensions of existing services were made by the provision of additional maternal and
child welfare and chiropody sessions to meet demand, and the issue of incontinence pads (as an
extension of the existing laundry service), to patients who would benefit from their use. Plans
for two Health Centres in Westminster are well advanced and will form part of the Hall Place
(Edgware Road) Housing development and the more extensive Lisson Green scheme. Fuller
details of all the local health services are set out in the pages which follow.
The vital statistics for 1966 are set out on page 7 and reveal certain interesting changes. The
actual number of births decreased in 1966 by 301 from the previous year; the number of illegitimate
births decreased by 57, but the proportion of illegitimate live births expressed as a percentage of
total live births remained constant (18.57% compared with 18.59% in 1965). A more significant
factor, however, was that the death rate of illegitimate infants per 1,000 illegitimate live births was
almost double the previous year—41.29 compared with 21.77 in 1965 and more than double the
death rate of 18.49 per 1,000 live births for legitimate children under 1 year of age, a figure which
has hardly changed since last year.
In my introduction to my last Annual Report I drew attention to the large number of illegitimate
births which were occurring in Westminster, and the alarming number of stillbirths and early
neo-natal deaths occurring in the pregnancies of unmarried mothers. In March 1966 a report on
this matter was presented by the Medical Officer of Health, the Director of Welfare and the Children's
Officer to the Health, Welfare and Children's Committees. The respective Committees agreed that a
research study should be undertaken by one of the Council's social workers into the problems
which confront unmarried mothers in Westminster and the services which are available to help them.
This study was carried out during July—November 1966 by a well-qualified Senior Social Worker
in the Health Department who had had previous experience as a medical social worker in various
hospitals and who had also worked for a period as a research assistant in a commercial organisation.
Several very interesting facts arose as a result of this study, and a full report was considered by the
Health, Welfare, Housing and Children's Committees in May 1967. The Council subsequently felt
that it would be helpful if all the organisations, voluntary and official, involved in providing services
for unmarried mothers in Westminster, could meet together to discuss the problems and to see what
further needed to be done. This seminar will be held in September 1967; and a detailed report
setting out the results of the research study and the findings of the special seminar, will be included
in my next Annual Report.
Only one maternal death occurred in 1966, compared with three in the previous year. Lay readers
of the Report may feel somewhat surprised that a condition described as a "mole" could be the
cause of the death of a young mother. It may perhaps allay anxiety if I explain that this is not a mole
such as found on the surface of the skin, but is a potentially malignant condition which occurs
rarely in early pregnancy affecting the womb.
Turning next to staff matters, there were the usual shortages of staff in certain categories, notably
the nursing grades and the public health inspectorate. In regard to the former category, the low
rates of pay prescribed by the Nurses and Midwives Council do little to assist recruitment and retention
of staff.