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Both pools have spacious dressing rooms which are provided with foot-baths and showers. Diving
stages and spring-boards offer every facility for the advanced swimmer and diver, and refreshments
are obtainable in the upper balconies. The numbers of school children receiving swimming instruction
has been maintained and a greater interest in Life Saving Instruction is apparent by the numbers of
school children obtaining awards for personal survival issued by the Royal Life Saving Society and
the Amateur Swimming Association.
Private bath facilities consist of 24 baths each for men and women. Attendances during the year
totalled 68,796 as compared with 76,659 in the previous year. The decline in attendance is thought
to be largely due to the Council's rehousing schemes which have provided hitherto regular users with
their own facilities. The baths are available every day and charges are Monday to Wednesday:
adults 7d., children 3d. ; Thursday to Sunday : lid. Old age pensioners, unemployed or blind
persons can obtain baths from Monday to Friday at a cost of Id. Foam baths have been introduced
in both the men's and women's sections. They can be had in private and for this reason are often
preferred to Turkish Baths, which are communal.
The Public laundry facilities consist of a machine laundry, comprising 8 fully automatically
controlled washing machines, 3 water-extractors and 24 drying racks, and a hand laundry provided
with 8 composite units for washing, boiling and ironing, 2 water-extractors and 10 drying racks.
The installation of automatically controlled washing machines has encouraged greater use of the
machine laundry and it is in some measure due to this that attendances at the hand laundry have
declined. Further modifications to the controlling apparatus have achieved improvements in the
quality of laundrywork and a saving in time. Two Rotary Ironing Machines have recently been
installed and it is now possible to take home a 15 lb. load of domestic washing completely dried and
ironed in lj hours. The number of young married women using the laundry has increased and
many expressions of appreciation of the Ironing Machines have been received.
Medical Examinations.
Staff.—The Medical Officer of Health is medical adviser to the Council for staff purposes. During
1962, one hundred and fifty-two examinations of the Council's employees and new entrants to the
superannuation scheme were carried out.
Parking Meter Exemptions.—The Council are empowered in certain circumstances to give exemption
from parking meter charges to a person who is severely disabled. During the year, forty-nine
applications were referred to the Medical Officer of Health for observations and, if necessary, medical
examination.
Home Safety.
The provisional statistics for 1962 indicate that some 8,750 people died in Great Britain as a result
of an accident at home. Although this figure is 2,000 more than were killed on the roads, public
awareness does not seem to have been aroused to the serious problem of home accidents. The Department
tries to give as much publicity as possible to this subject and during the year talks illustrated with
films or film-strips were given at several old people's clubs and a home safety handbook was issued to
all tenants of Borough Council properties. In addition, regular displays of posters and pamphlets
were arranged in support of the national "Training for Home Safety Campaign ", organised by RoSPA,
which commenced in October.
New Legislation.
A list of the new Acts, Regulations and Orders, relating to the work of the Department, is given in
Table 26, page 38.
SECTION C.—SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES
Sanitary Inspection.
The Borough is divided into five areas, each of which is dealt with by a District Public Health
Inspector. Inspection of dwelling-houses is summarised in Table 5, page 31.
Excluding rat and mouse infestations, 1,089 complaints were received and details of 1,094 various
nuisances remedied are shown in Table 6, page 32.
Notices.—Intimation Notices served under the Public Health (London) Act, 1936, numbered 267,
and 57 of these were followed by the service of Statutory Notices to secure abatement of nuisances,
In addition seventeen other formal notices were served, as follows: eight in respect of blocked drains.