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19
C.—PREMISES THAT ARE NOT BUT SHOULD BE
REGISTERED.
For a variety of reasons the number of premises in the Borough in which meals
are provided or food is sold ready cooked or is prepared for sale is very large. At the
end of 1921 there were 301, this number including: restaurant, dining room and
coffee shop kitchens, 170. tea-rooms and pastry-cooks, 58. hotel kitchens, 46; fried
fish shops, 22. and fish-curers, 5. In addition, there were a number of shops in
which meat, ham, sausages, &c., were cooked and sold only over the counter.
The routine practice of visiting a number of restaurants, &c., each week was
continued by the Food Inspector, and any matters discovered dealt with at once.
In 1921 the total number of inspections was 1,259, the number of notices served
being 26.
Food Stalls.—Of these there are considerable numbers in the market streets,
particularly Great Titchfield Street, Bell Street, Church Street, Blandford Street,
&c.
Definite arrangements are made for the keeping of such as are used for the sale
of food under close observation. Throughout 1921 visits were paid to all the market
streets every day, a special feature being made of Saturday night and Sunday
morning inspections.
SCHOOLS.
The following remarks were contained in the Report for 1920 and are
reproduced here in the hope chat they may attract attention to a matter of
considerable importance not only from the health but the financial point of view.
The medical officer of health of a Borough in the Metropolis is not school
medical officer. The work in connection with both schools and school children is
entirely in the hands of the London County Council and their officers, the local
medical officer of health having little or nothing to do with it. In no part of the
kingdom, indeed, is the divorce between the general public health work and school
medical work so complete as in the Metropolis, and since it is impossible to see any
justification for it on public health grounds, certainly, and probably also on economic
grounds, it is difficult to understand why either the central government authorities
or the local authorities have for so long acquiesced in the arrangement.
For the reason that the question of re-organization of public health in London
is under consideration, and this as well as other anomalies are or will soon be under
discussion, it is not proposed to take it up here. It may be stated, however, that
because of the existence of the two authorities there is frequently duplication of work,
a quite unnecessary and excessive amount of interchange of correspondence and
from time to time cross-purposes. All of which is contrary to the best interests of
the public health locally and particularly to those of the children.
In regard to the infectious diseases, as they affect the school child, that there
should be two staffs—the local and the County Council—engaged, appears to be
unnecessary and generally leads merely to the expenditure of a great deal of energy
as a result of each endeavouring to keep the other informed as to the state of affairs.
That, so far as the general health of the school children, as determined by
medical inspection, is concerned, only one authority, and that not the local authority
but the County Council, possesses full information, is a serious matter. In regard to
conditions found at the medical inspections, the local medical officer of health receives
no direct information; as a matter of fact, if he desires to learn where inspections
are to be made, he must ask to be informed or find out from the weekly gazette of