London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
London County Council 1960
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for London County Council]
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STAFF
The following statement shows the number of staff employed in the Public Health department at the end of the year (part-time staff are expressed as whole-time equivalents). The principal officers of the department at that date are shown in Appendix D.
| Types of staff | Location | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Central office | Divisional offices and establishments (a) | Other establishments (b) | Total | |
| Administrative and clerical (including ambulance control clerks) | 209 | 639 | 79 | 927 |
| Medical officers (c) | 34 | 162 | 196 | |
| Dental officers | 2 | 58 | 1 | 61 |
| Scientific branch staff | 31 | - | 13 | 44 |
| Inspectors | 15 | - | - | 15 |
| Medical auxiliaries (d) | 31 | 155 | 20 | 206 |
| Social worker grades (e) | 26 | 338 | 9 | 373 |
| Nursing and midwifery staff | 10 | 1,801 | 198 | 2,009 |
| Ambulance service operational staff | - | - | 780 | 780 |
| Manual workers, home helps, domestic grades, telephonists, etc. | 7 | 3,258 | 23 | 3,288 |
| Totals | 365 | 6,411 | 1,123 | 7,899 |
(a) Including divisional health offices, home help offices, welfare centres, school treatment centres, training
centres for the mentally sub-normal, etc.
(b) Including residential schools and nurseries, Welfare department homes, recuperative holiday homes,
ambulance stations, outfall works laboratories, central dental laboratory.
(c) There are 120 visiting medical officers employed at residential establishments on a part-time basis whom
it is not possible to compute in terms of whole-time staff. They have therefore been omitted from the table.
(d) Including physiotherapists, speech therapists, dental attendants, dental technicians.
(e) Including psychiatric social workers, mental welfare officers, local tuberculosis care organisers, child
care organising staff, etc. and workers in allied fields (e.g. home help organisers).
Training of health visitors—The Council appointed 45 student health visitors for training
in 1959.60 under its standing arrangements. Theoretical training was provided by the
University of London Institute of Education (35 students), the Battersea College of Technology
(6 students) and the Royal College of Nursing (4 students), arrangements for practical
instruction in the department's divisional establishments being arranged and co.ordinated
with the theoretical training under the direction of the Council's principal health visitor
tutor. The course was completed and the examination taken by 44 of the students, of whom
43 were successful.
Mental health service—As I have mentioned elsewhere in this report, the Council's
proposals for the reorganisation and development of its mental health services in the light
of the Mental Health Act, 1959 involved the delegation of day.to.day responsibility to
the nine health divisions. Teams of mental health social workers responsible to the
divisional medical officer have been set up in each division to undertake the local mental
welfare services, each team including a qualified psychiatric social worker who by virtue
of specialised training is able to carry out special case work and to advise colleagues.
The reorganisation has brought together, under the principal mental welfare officer and
her deputy, social workers who had hitherto specialised almost exclusively in work either
with the mentally ill or with the mentally sub.normal, and for the first time the Council's
women social workers are undertaking the arrangements for removal of mentally disordered
persons.
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