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GENERAL PUBLIC HEALTH
Rehousing on medical grounds
Since the war housing has never been far from the headlines. The demand for municipal
housing has been very great and consequently the London County Council and the
metropolitan borough councils have devoted a large part of their resources firstly to the
repair of war damage and then to slum clearance and increasing the total housing resources.
In the immediate post-war years the Council had a points scheme, whereby points were
awarded to the applicants for housing accommodation for various factors such as bedroom
deficiency, time on the waiting list, etc., and one of these factors was ill health. As a
consequence, medical officers of this department had to assess a vast number of medical
certificates submitted by housing applicants (between 30,000 and 45,000 each year for the
years 1949/1955). As the majority of these cases required further enquiry, for instance of
the borough medical officer of health concerning alleged sanitary defects, this was no light
task. A review by the Housing Committee of the housing position in 1955 showed that
most of the larger areas for building in London had been used and that there was bound
to be a slowing up in building additional accommodation owing to lack of sites within
the county. Moreover, slum clearance and other redevelopment required about 7,000
houses a year. Slum clearance was given first priority but nevertheless the Council decided
to put aside a quota of dwellings annually for rehousing persons on purely medical grounds.
In November 1956 all applicants on the housing list were informed that, as the Council
had rehoused 75,000 families between 1945 and 1955, priority in the future had to be
given to slum clearance. A letter was sent to hospital staff's and general practitioners
explaining the limited amount of housing which could be allocated on medical grounds
and requesting them not to submit medical certificates but to send a personal letter to
the Medical Officer of Health for his consideration in each case where they considered
that an applicant or a member of his family was suffering from a very serious medical
condition which would benefit from rehousing. Such letters have since continued to be
received at a rate of 2,500 to 3,000 a year, together with some 1,500 requests annually for
reassessment of or giving further details of a case previously turned down.
On receipt of a doctor's recommendation a health visitor filled in the family background
and where necessary a public health inspector's report on the premises was obtained. A
medical officer in each division assessed each case and indicated whether further consideration
was justified. This decision has to be a realistic one, having regard to the number
of recommendations received from doctors far exceeding the number of dwellings allocated.
From those cases marked for further consideration, the most needy cases were selected for
nomination by the Medical Officer of Health or his deputy to the Housing Committee for
rehousing when dwellings became available. From 1956 there was a separate allocation
of dwellings for tuberculous cases but as the number of recommendations received from
chest physicians fell from 421 in 1957 to 126 in 1963, this quota was combined with the
general health allocation in 1964 when the Housing Committee set aside 500 dwellings
(including 50 mobile homes) for rehousing on medical grounds.
During the years 1956-1964 the Council rehoused 2,847 families solely for medical
reasons, 838 being on grounds of infectious tuberculosis.

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