View report page

4
Town Hall,
Euston Road, N.W.I.
1th July, 1948.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the
Metropolitan Borough of Saint Pancras.
Your Worship, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to place before you my annual report upon the conditions of health and sanitation
in the Metropolitan Borough of Saint Pancras during the year 1947, this being the fourth annual
report it has been my privilege to present.
Once again I propose in my opening remarks to call attention to the actual environmental
factors which are influencing the health and comfort of the residents of the borough.
The coming year will see certain responsibilities in connection with the care of individuals
pass from the hands of the borough council, and this has somewhat clouded our appreciation
of the primary aim and object of a public health department. This primary object is the
preservation of the health of the community by raising the standard of living and by educating
the public in the ways of health. The coming into operation of the National Health Service
Act on 5th July, 1948, does not take away from the borough council its responsibility for
preserving the health of the 136,700 persons who live in the borough. Nor does it relieve the
Council's Officers of their responsibility in this respect. It has been the privilege of the
Metropolitan borough councils to build up maternity and child welfare, home help and
domestic help schemes, and to care for the tuberculous in their own homes. In the provision of
these services they have been pioneers, particularly so in St. Pancras, where the first child
welfare centre was commenced. It is often the lot of pioneers to tread the hard path and establish
in a small way what afterwards becomes a big service, and this has been the lot of St. Pancras
in so far as child welfare is concerned. Whilst the pioneer spirit still exists, fresh fields of
activity will become apparent, and never was there a time when enterprise was so required as
it is to-day, to improve the standard of living of the citizens of large towns that have been
subjected to the ravages of war. The finest social services can only achieve effective results
if the population they serve is provided with the right environmental background. In due
course the country will be provided with an integral hospital service. It will not be sufficient to
provide wards where disease can be cured, where the pain of ill-health can be mitigated. It
will be essential to find out why hospital beds are filled, and what are the factors in every-day
life that create the circumstances that lead to disease. Once again, then, I turn in these opening
remarks to a survey of the environmental conditions of St. Pancras, and place before you a
survey of the homes in which our residents are living.
Housing.
The total number of houses and flats in the borough is approximately 24,150. The
majority of the houses are occupied by two or more families, for it is estimated that there are
over 40,000 separate families living in the borough. Some indication of the condition of these
premises can be gauged from the number of complaints received in the course of a year. For
the past three years the figures are as follow:—
1945 3,832
1946 5,689
1947 7,550