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situated at St. George's Hospital, Tooting, to which unit most of
our cases of infectious disease are admitted and thus we are able
to maintain close contacts with the Consultant in Infectious
Disease and his staff.
Towards the end of last year, a branch of the Public Health
Laboratory Service was opened at St. George's Hospital and we
have already found this link to be very useful. Bacteriological
specimens are sent to the Laboratory and we have close and
cordial contacts with the Director of the Laboratory, Dr. S. Fleck,
and his colleagues and staff.
With the psychiatric hospitals close links have been forged by
the mental health section of the Health Department and full
details are given in the section of this Report on page 81. Arrangements
have been made for social workers to visit the two hospitals
admitting our mentally ill cases, that is to say, West Park Hospital
and Tooting Bee Hospital and our social workers also assist at
the day hospitals attached to those hospitals. The same applies
in the case of Queen Mary's Hospital, Carshalton, to which many
of our mentally subnormal children are sent. For many years we
have provided facilities for two mental hospitals to see their outpatients
at William Harvey Centre and Putney Health Centre.
Arrangements also are in being for ante-natal patients booked
for confinement at St. Teresa's Hospital to be seen at our William
Harvey clinic by medical and nursing staff from the hospital. In
fact, we place the premises at the disposal of the hospital and
the Regional Hospital Board for this purpose, free of charge. This
has proved a considerable convenience to the expectant mothers
in saving them the journey to Wimbledon.
(3) General Practitioners
There have always been close and cordial relationships between
the public health medical staff and general practitioners in this
area and, as mentioned earlier, I have for many years acted as
Honorary Treasurer to the local branch of the British Medical
Association. In order to foster these close relations, particularly
after the inauguration of the new London Borough of Wandsworth,
his Worship the Mayor, as described in my report for last
year, held an evening reception for general practitioners which
was extremely well attended and was welcomed by everybody.
As to the medical work of the Department in its relation to
general practitioners, our medical officers, working in clinics, are
actively encouraged to consult personally or by telephone or letter
with general practitioners on a clinical and professional basis
upon any cases needing discussion which they come across in
their work in the clinics. Since some of our doctors have been
working in the area for a considerable time and since as far as is
practicable they work in fairly circumscribed areas of the Borough,