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Progress on the permanent Thamesmead health centre was delayed owing to labour
difficulties, but as these applied to the whole area, no imbalance was created affecting only the
health services. Piling of the site was completed in Autumn 1968 and the building commenced in
March 1970. The situation was kept under review by the Joint Health Services Advisory Committee
on the five occasions it met during the first nine months of the year. In July the meeting took the
form of an Open Day during which a large number of invited guests, including members of Bexley
London Borough Council, heard about the project generally and paid a visit to the temporary
health centre and the site of the permanent centre.
Two agreed modifications of the original plan (shown in the previous Annual Report) were
that the most northerly of the consulting rooms — marked Dental Hygienist in the plan previously
— would be equipped for audiological work and the dental surgery nearest to this room would be
loaned and converted temporarily to use for ophthalmic services.
ERITH HEALTH CENTRE
In January 1970 there was a reactivation of interest in the development of a health centre at
Erith Town Centre. In 1967 planning had reached a fairly advanced stage but had come virtually to
a halt due to the difficulties and delays affecting the redevelopment as a whole. Lengthy discussions
between the Council and the Development Company resulted in a considerable contraction
of the original commercial part of the development scheme without obviating the need to provide
a health centre. There were now two pressing reasons for moving ahead with some haste.
In the first place it was essential to have a medical centre ready before demolition of the
existing practice premises. It will be recalled that the earliest steps to form this centre, taken before
1965, were prompted by the need to provide alternative premises for the practices involved in the
redevelopment, hence the term "medical centre". After 1965 the idea of a health centre was
introduced and it is to the credit of the practitioners concerned that they accepted it, even if at
first, owing to its origins, it was more like a bilateral project with the Council than a fully integrated
scheme. They are the first of the Borough's general practitioners to do so and even though it has
been the Council's policy to encourage the development of health centres, no other practitioners
so far have shown an active interest in them. Limitations at the site at first appeared to be dictating
a two-stage development of the centre, the practitioner services being in the first stage. Fortunately
with the passage of time another site emerged from the changing pattern which permitted a
comprehensive approach and early in 1970 this was agreed with the Executive Council and the
general practitioners.
Secondly, the need for a health centre was becoming ever more urgent because the existing
local health services were continuing to operate year after year in the same inadequate premises
situated well away from the new development. In addition medical opinion was coming rapidly to
approve of health centre practice. It was to be expected also, in view of the growing experience of
health centre design, that some modification of the original plans would be necessary. Comments
on the revised plans together with a draft Design Guide for Health Centres were received from the
Department of Health and Social Security in March 1970, following which the second and final
revisions of the plan were submitted to the Department of Health and Social Security during the
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