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Health Department,
Civic Centre,
Dagenham.
To; THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND BURGESSES OF THE LONDON BOROUGH OF BARKING.
On the 1st April 1965 the new London Borough of Barking came into being
under the London Government Act 1963. The department was formed out of the
former Boroughs of Dagenham and Barking, although a portion of each was not
included in the new Borough. The total population of the new London Borough at
its inception was 172,970.
I find it difficult to comment on the services of the new London Borough
during this first nine months in the way one usually comments upon the services
of a borough which has been established for some years. Prior to 1st April 1965
a good deal of preliminary discussion had, of course, taken place, and the new
Council had adopted a policy which was opposed to any member of the staff being
declared redundant. It was decided that Dr. Adamson, the Medical Officer of
Health of the old Borough of Barking should be made Associate Medical Officer of
Health of the new London Borough, and that Dr. Slome and Dr. Packer would both
be Deputies in the new Borough. On 1st April 1965 there were then a Medical
Officer of Health and an Associate, two Deputy Medical Officers of Health, two
Lay Administrative Officers, two Home Help Organisers, and a number of other
dual appointments. This could have created extremely difficult problems of
personal relationships if the staffs of the two departments concerned had not
been so helpful and extremely co-operative.
There was much discussion as to whether the headquarters of the new health
department should be in the Barking Town Hall or at the Civic Centre, Dagenham.
It was finally decided that a small portion of the department, namely the home
help service of the old Borough of Barking, with its Organiser, should stay in
the Town Hall at Barking, while the rest of the department would be housed in the
Civic Centre, Dagenham. Fortunately, a new extension at the Civic Centre, a
proportion of which housed the health department staff, had been planned and
built when it was already known that the new London Borough would be coming into
existence in 1965. This enabled me to make certain provision for extra services
such as the mental health service, an expanded school health service, and a
separate health education section, which would be necessary for the functioning
of the new borough. Shortly after amalgamation the Dagenham Home Help Organiser
retired, and the opportunity was taken to rehouse the whole of the home help
service in the Dagenham Civic Centre.
In spite of the smooth way in which the department continued to function
after the new London Borough was set up, there were many problems, not least of
all those created by differing practices in the two boroughs. It was decided to
extend decentralisation of the clinic services to the whole of the new borough,
and the administrative staff set about the task of carrying this through.
Throughout the period of the changeover from old to new borough, emphasis
was laid on the service in the field continuing to function as before. Any
necessary administrative changes were made in such a way as to alter the service
to the public as little as possible.
There was much to learn about services for which the boroughs had not been
responsible before April 1965; for example, the mental health service, the home
nursing service and a proportion of the domiciliary midwifery service. This
created a considerable amount of extra work for the staff, as did also the fact
that the new authority is a local health authority (that is a first tier authority)
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