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2
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH FOR 1953
Once again, throughout the year, a good deal of attention was paid
to the important subject of food hygiene and the supervision of
catering establishments, and in the latter part of the year, after due
consideration, the Health Committee decided that the District
Sanitary Inspectors should be given specific instructions to participate
in the day-to-day work of safeguarding the Borough's food supplies.
I am sure this was a wise decision which should pay good dividends.
The care and welfare of old people again occupied much of our
time, working in close conjunction with both the voluntary bodies
which are doing such excellent work for the old people in the Borough,
and with the statutory organizations. As the proportion of old
people in the population increases, this important part of our work
will assume increasing dimensions.
One of the great social and health problems of the post-war
period has been the housing of the people. Satisfactory and satisfying
living conditions are as important to the individual and even more
vital to the welfare of the family as a whole, as are the other essentials
of wellbeing—good food, pure and wholesome water and fresh air.
No community can ever be a really healthy community or can achieve
complete social adjustment until it is satisfactorily housed. A great
deal of the work of the Health Department is concerned directly or
indirectly with the living conditions of the people of the Borough and
we act both under the provisions of the Public Health Act and the
Housing Act. Since the War, most of our work has been conducted
under the Public Health Act, but during the year, action began to be
taken to obtain the clearance of certain unfit houses under the Housing
Act, and there are signs that shortly a vigorous attack will be
made on houses unfit for human habitation.
The more I see of Public Health work in its wide sense and the
practice of social and preventive medicine in the more narrow sense,
the more certain do I become that all our efforts to improve the
health, welfare and wellbeing of the people must be conducted as a
team effort. I made some slight reference to this last year when
I referred to the great help, kindness and co-operation which I
had received from everyone concerned with the work of the Health
Department, and I have the greatest pleasure in repeating that this
kindly help was continued unstinted in 1953. I should like particularly
to thank the Chairman of the Health Committee, Councillor
T. V. Rowlands, and to acknowledge the courtesy and assistance
which I have received from the Committees with whose work I am