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It is hoped this will combine group practice premises with provision for local
authority health and welfare services, within the same curtilage. Local
doctors affected by redevelopment are willing to associate together, and if
it were possible to restrict a specific catchment area to this group at the
Health Centre, integration of the general practitioners/local health authority
and hospital sides would be possible in the specified area.
Mental Health
The year brought changes for the mental health section, both geographically
and administratively.The staff moved to join the main health department office
in June 1965. On the disbanding of the London County Council mental health
sections, with their partly centralised arrangements, new borough schemes had
to be made. In some areas of inner London, conjoint arrangements between
contiguous boroughs were planned. Tower Hamlets is fortunate in having a
mental hospital,St. Clement's,within its boundaries, and with the co-operation
of the hospital an emergency admission scheme for the Borough was based thereat.
Considerable benefits accrued from this, as our statutory duty to provide in
addition to a day service, a night and weekend service, would have required a
complicated and expensive system. However, under a joint scheme, mental
welfare officers from this department are available, either by telephone at
home or resident at the hospital whilst on duty, to attend on patients
requiring assistance in their homes. A fuller account is given on page 39.
Just as important for the future, the furtherance of closer co-operation and
integration of the two parties will be increasingly of mutual benefit whilst
providing a better service to the public. In-service training and refresher
courses have already been arranged.
Almost half the Borough, the eastern part, is now part of the catchment
area, for all purposes,of St. Clement's Hospital. Some commitments,particularly
in respect of the long-term aged mentally disturbed patients, will have to
remain for the time being the responsibility of Long Grove Hospital, Epsom. It
is intended to accelerate provision within the district for most, if not all,
mentally ill patients so saving relatives and friends a long journey outside
the locality. Much will depend on the results of the schemes being tried at
St.Clement's to ensure a reduced duration of hospital stay, concomitantly with
the extension of an efficient and humane community mental health service. The
latter is by no means deficient, for both voluntary and statutory aspects are
flourishing (as is discussed later in this report). The Borough has other
complex problems in addition to the routine provision of services in, for
instance, the large number of socially inadequate persons, alcoholics and
meth drinkers' who congregate in its boundaries.
6.