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91
The treatment of venereal disease is the responsibility of the
hospital authorities, the local health authorities being concerned
mainly with following up patients who have failed to complete
treatment. Welfare officers are employed by the six Inner London
Boroughs in whose areas VD clinics are situated and on behalf of
all Inner London authorities—including Wandsworth—they try
to persuade patients to continue their attendances. They also trace
contacts identified by patients with the object of getting them to
attend the special clinics.
Each year the physicians in charge of the VD clinics notify
the appropriate medical officers of health of the numbers of cases
treated. Although the accuracy of the figures cannot be guaranteed,
as a patient may give a false address, they do give a good
indication of the numbers seeking treatment and of the steady
increase that has occurred during the past five years, the period
during which records have been kept. It should be noted that
column (7) applies to 1971 only. From 1967 to 1970 columns (6)
and (7) were combined, and those figures are shown in column (6).
To obtain a fair comparison the 1971 figures in columns (6) and (7)
should be added together. As these statistics deal with cases it is
not possible to ascertain the numbers of patients ; one patient may
come into more than one category.

Health education
General
With the reshaping of the Health Department in 1971, the third
Principal Medical Officers' role reflected the importance attached
to health education, the object being to organise and co-ordinate
a comprehensive and continuing programme of health education
in the Borough. Within the Health Department, health education