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Instead of wasting time and resources on super elaborate welfare services I suggest we should be
concentrating our limited cash and resources on prevention and the matter of clean air is only one
which can be tackled immediately if the Council so wishes.
In my opinion Seebohm is the wrong type of approach to our current ills. Emphasis must in the
national interest and that of the patient be given to finding the reasons why so many of the population
nowadays become dependent on social support and to iliminating, if possible, the causes.
To erect an elaborate edifice of a social services department as envisaged by Seebohm and to
abolish the health department with its 100 years or more of real progress in preventing disease, as
envisaged in the Green Paper, would be hazardous and short-sighted in the extreme.
H.L. SETTLE
Medical Officer of Health
and Director of Welfare Services
November, 1968
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