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Health Education
Health education covers a very wide field and it is only possible to deal with aspects
which were outstanding during the year.
A diphtheria immunisation campaign was held in January and an improvement in
the acceptance rate of primary injections was noted.
The timing of this campaign and of the ' Safety in the Home ' week were given Major
careful consideration. So that a course of injections might have a better chance of campaigns
completion before the season closes for the use of triple or combined antigens it was decided
that in future diphtheria immunisation campaigns should be held in the early autumn,
but the timing of the 'Safety in the Home' week should be unchanged. To avoid a
gap of over a year and a half before the next diphtheria immunisation campaign a
second campaign was held in the two weeks commencing 6th October. The home
safety campaign followed early in November. The difficulty of running two major
campaigns so close together was increased by the receipt of Ministry of Health Circular
20/58 extending the age groups for whom vaccination against poliomyelitis was available.
It was important that this form of protection should be made widely available to the
extended age group and arrangements were made for additional clinics to be provided
from 8th November. A great deal of publicity had to be arranged including preparation
and display of posters, distribution of leaflets and the organisation of publicity in the
local and evening newspapers. This, together with work that was being carried out to
make effective the safety in the home campaign which began on 2nd November,
imposed a very heavy burden on divisional and central office staff and indicated that,
unless circumstances made it impossible to do so, the coincidence or near coincidence
of major health education efforts should be avoided in the future.
Ministry of Health Circular 6/58 expressed concern at the number of casualties
arising from home accidents, stressed the need for co-ordinating the efforts of the large
number of organisations involved in any area, and suggested the setting up of local
committees as an effective method of doing so. It also intimated that hospital authorities
had been asked to assist by supplying information about the incidence of serious home
accidents. As mentioned in my report of 1957 metropolitan borough councils had
received co-extensive powers with this Council in the home accident field and generally
the orders of reference of their existing road safety committees were enlarged to include
this new responsibility. Arrangements were made where this was desired by the council
concerned for representation on these committees by divisional medical officers, who
already had a close liaison with borough colleagues. Arrangements were also made for
provision of information about patients treated in London hospitals as a result of home
accidents occurring in homes within the Administrative County, the inquiry to continue
for a period of six months and include out-patients as well as in-patient admissions.
The memorandum on burns and scalds and their avoidance, which accompanied the
Minister's Circular, was made widely available to the Council's staff and was brought
to the notice of the London Local Medical Committee with the suggestion that it should
be provided for all general practitioners.
Home Office Circular 58/1958 intimated that the Home Secretary hoped to launch ' Guard that
personally a campaign to impress upon householders and other responsible persons
the need to provide and use efficient fireguards. As this coincided with arrangements
for the Council's fifth home safety campaign, which would cover the whole range of
home accident prevention, the Council's campaign was made to include the placing
of special emphasis upon the need for the provision of adequately fixed fireguards of
British standard pattern and thus to support the Home Secretary.
As part of the campaign an exhibition on this theme presented at County Hall was
opened by the Home Secretary, who used the opportunity as an official occasion to
launch his nationwide campaign. Mr. Butler stressed the importance of the co-operation
of local authorities, the press, the broadcasting authorities, voluntary organisations,
industries and traders in running a successful campaign. He said :—
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