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43
Health Centres
Plans for the Council's first comprehensive health centre at Woodberry Down
were approved by the Minister of Health, and on 16th March, 1949, the Minister,
the Rt. Hon. Aneurin Bevan, M.P., turned the first sod at a ceremony held to mark
the commencement of the work. A tender for the building work (including the
cost of a day nursery) amounting to £149,956, was accepted by the Council later
in the year. It is expected that the centre will open in 1951.
Consideration was given during the year to the erection of a comprehensive health
centre on a site in East India Dock Road, Poplar, but at the suggestion of the
Ministry of Health the project was postponed.
Two other schemes to provide health centres by converting existing buildings
reached the stage where consultations were held with the Local Medical Committee
and with the general practitioners in the areas concerned. It had been hoped to
include in one of these schemes a " university health centre " for the postgraduate
training of general practitioners and to accept a grant offered by the Rockefeller
Foundation to meet the cost of improvements and salaries of a director and research
personnel. It was not possible, however, under the National Health Service Act,
1946, to give the general practitioners practising in the neighbourhood the assurances
they desired as to the conditions under which they would be prepared to participate
in the scheme and the conversion of the buildings was, therefore, postponed.
Acquisition of Sites
Although it may not be possible to embark upon a large programme of building
health centres for some years, it is necessary that some suitable sites should be
reserved if they are to be available when building on a wider scale becomes
practicable. This problem is dealt with in two ways — first, by purchasing cleared
sites or reserving sites on land already purchased for housing estates; and second,
by the designation of sites in the development plan which is being prepared in accordance
with Section 5 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947.
Proposals for the purchase of two cleared sites were submitted to the Executive
Council and the Ministry of Health, and by the end of the year approval to the
purchase of one of these at Brockley Rise, Lewisham, had been received. Other
cleared sites were under investigation, but the proposals had not reached the stage
of consultations with the Executive Council and the Ministry of Health. The number
of cleared sites likely to be available for building health centres is limited, and to
supplement these it is necessary to designate further sites in the Town Planning
Development Plan for acquisition during the period 1951-1961. A survey of London
has been made and a number of blocks of property have been selected for consideration
in consultation with the Executive Council and the Ministry of Health. In most
cases sites to be designated will consist of old property which is still occupied, and
some rehousing will be necessary before the property can be demolished. The building
of health centres on these sites must, therefore, await the provision of new housing
accommodation and in some cases the resumption of slum clearance.
Equipment of Health Centres
In order that standard equipment for day nurseries, maternity and child welfare
centres, and other health service buildings, might be devised a departmental committee
was appointed with the following order of reference:—
To consider and report to the Medical Officer of Health as soon as possible on —
(i) The range and number of articles of furniture and equipment which
would normally be supplied to day nurseries, maternity and child
welfare centres, school health establishments, holiday homes and
comprehensive health centres.