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Health Department,
Civic Centre,
Dagenham.
To: THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND BURGESSES OF THE LONDON BOROUGH OF BARKING.
The end of 1966 saw the end of the first full year of the new London
Borough of Barking. It was a year of considerable progress in the settling in
of staffs, the beginning of the emergence of a new pattern of borough services
very different from the pre-amalgamation days. The building up of new relationships,
both inside and outside the department, continued. The need for fostering
these relationships between members of the staff of the department itself and
with other departments began to make itself evident towards the end of 1966.
This it was felt should be a major aim during 1967.
At the end of 1965 the department was leading a hand-to-mouth existence,
coping with day-to-day problems as they arose but with very little time for
long-term planning. During 1966 plans were made and efforts continued to develop
the mental health section of the department so as to lay down a satisfactory
pattern for the future.
Towards the end of the year, in spite of shortages of staff, improvements in
the quality of service were beginning to be achieved. It gives me particular
pleasure to be able to say that looking at the main body of the report one is
struck by the developments in certain sections of the department in spite of
their patchiness. Progress continued in health education on which so much of our
primary preventive work for the future must depend. One special aspect of health
education which occupied a considerable amount of the time of the health education
staff was health education in schools. It became evident that much of the health
education in schools would have to be carried out by teaching staff, and it is
hoped to increase the in-service training for teaching staff started in 1966. In
the general field of health education it is of vital importance that all members
of the staff should play their part and not assume that the health education
staff alone should carry out this task. In this connection, the next step in
development in health education should be the beginnings of evaluating health
education in the borough. The evaluation should be first enquiry as to the need
for health education and for the particular aspects required within the borough,
followed by an assessment of results to find out whether what has been attempted
has, in fact, been achieved. This evaluation has been held up because of staff
shortages.
A reduction in ante-natal attendances continues, but this must not detract
us from continuing to press forward with ante-natal preparation classes until
every expectant mother - whether she has her confinement in hospital or at
home - who resides in the borough has attended at least for her first pregnancy
at a course of ante-natal preparation and that the expectant fathers too have
been given an opportunity of attending with their wives.
It is with particular pleasure that we have to announce that we were at long
last able to open the Annie Prendergast Clinic and Day Nursery named after Mrs.
Annie Prendergast. Mrs. Prendergast has done invaluable work over many years for
the health of the people of Dagenham, and it is due to her foresight that the
seeds of many of the progressive measures within the borough were sown. The
borough owes her a debt which perhaps cannot ever be repaid, but it was I feel a
particularly happy thought on the part of the present Chairman, Alderman Mrs.
Ball, to suggest that the Annie Prendergast Clinic 6hould be named after her, and
it gave many people a great dead of pleasure that this plan was carried through.
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