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4
Town Hall,
Euston Road, N.W.1.
June, 1952.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the
Metropolitan Borough of St. Pancras.
Your Worship, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have pleasure in presenting to you my Annual Report for 1951 upon the conditions
of health and sanitation in the Metropolitan Borough of St. Pancras.
In previous reports I have referred to the large amount of money that is being spent
on curative medicine as compared with the small sums available for the prevention of disease.
The hospital service today costs well over 250 million pounds and it is now the usual practice
at health conventions to refer to this huge sum and to argue that more should be spent in
preventing those conditions which necessitate the admission of patients to hospital. This is
undoubtedly true and accepted, but one point, however, appears to be forgotten. By the
time a patient has been admitted to a hospital he has often been ill for some while and has
sought the advice of his own general practitioner who finally has advised that he should enter
hospital. Preventive medicine should commence, therefore, not at the time when an illness
is so bad that hospital treatment is required, but at the time when a patient first goes to his
general practitioner. We hear much today, not only about the long waiting lists for admission
to hospital, but even more of the fact that the general practitioner is over-worked and is seeing
more patients than he should. Schemes are now being considered whereby doctors shall be
so remunerated that they will in fact be encouraged to have fewer patients in order that they
may devote more time to each. We hear, moreover, that the bulwark in preventive medicine
is the general practitioner who sees the family as a whole and knows the conditions under
which the family has to fight disease. It is my opinion that we should do more than realise
this fact: we should do something to help the general practitioner, not only to enable him to
devote more time to his patients but to give him help in preventing that set of circumstances
that are leading to illness amongst those for whom he has undertaken responsibility.
No Medical Officer of Health could have better co-operation from the general
practitioners of his district than I have in St. Pancras, and I would like to pay a tribute to
the help I so regularly receive. I hope: during the year to approach at least some of the doctors
in St. Pancras with a view to seeing if we cannot combine to investigate some of those conditions
which they themselves see as prejudicial to health, and to bring before you a scheme to
effect this.
Sanitary Inspection.
The main work of a public health department is directed towards securing that the
inhabitants of the district live in healthy, happy and comfortable surroundings. To the
counter of the department arrive, therefore, residents and workers in the borough who need
help and guidance. The fact that about 6,000 official complaints as well as a similar number
of enquiries were made during the year is some indication of the value which the public sets
on this section of your activities. Many complaints are received relating to premises, sanitary
defects, food, noise and disturbance of health and comfort, but an equal number of persons
come to the department counter to seek help rather than to complain. This help might be