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4
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH FOR 1952
I am happy to be able to state that up to the present time no
difficulty whatsoever has been experienced and I am unaware
that any commitment or responsibility has gone undischarged.
Apart from the practicability of the arrangement as a purely
administrative measure, there are many other advantages. For
instance, the two boroughs comprising Health Division 9 are
such that they form a convenient and economic unit for the purpose
of planning the public health services, and this means that over a
fairly large area unified methods of sanitary administration and of
the practice of public health and preventive medicine can be applied.
This, in itself, tends to eliminate problems which might arise if
there were three separate departments with three separate heads,
and local difficulties can be the more easily ironed out; and this in
turn greatly helps all sections of the work.
Perhaps the most obvious advantages, however, are those which
involve branches of the work which are partly the responsibility
of the Wandsworth Borough Council and partly of the London
County Council. To take the control of infectious disease as an
example, if an outbreak occurs in a school or day nursery, the Borough
Council is certainly responsible, as the authority charged with the
prevention of infectious disease, for dealing with the epidemic, but
the London County Council is also intimately concerned in that
the infectious disease occurs in one of their institutions. By having
one person responsible for both sides of the work there is only one
guiding hand and the officers of both authorities can be employed
in conjunction or separately to the best effect. We have had instances
during the year of the great benefit which is derived from this
arrangement.
Another example is the care of old people. Their needs come to
light in a variety of ways, and the borough Sanitary Inspectors,
whose duties afford them entry into the homes of the people, are
frequently the first to uncover the special problems of an old man or
an old lady. On the other hand many of the health and social
services from which the aged derive special benefit are the responsibility
of the London County Council, although, under certain
conditions, the responsibility for removing an old person to hospital
rests with the Borough Council. Here again, with one person in
charge it has been possible to secure the close co-operation of both
authorities' officers, and the deployment at the right time and in the
right way of the service most suited to the individual. Yet again,
both authorities have important responsibilities in the matter of
housing, particularly where priority recommendations on medical
or health grounds are made, and undoubtedly this work is much
facilitated by the new procedure. These are but a few instances
of how the two separate services can be closely brought together
under the system.
An efficient public health and preventive medical service is essentially
a team service, and it is likely that the team spirit is more vital
in the system operating in Wandsworth than in any other. There